3506 Progress Update

[the-dan-ya]

Hi everyone! We have a Chief thread going for SystemCore testing and offseason builds but we’d like to give an update on GitHub as well.

Link to Chief thread: https://www.chiefdelphi.com/t/frc-3506-yeti-robotics-systemcore-alpha-testing-2025-offseason-rebuild-thread/504469

So far we have run SystemCore on two robots, our in-season robot Beluga and a newly built off-season robot Orca.

In-season:
CTRE Kraken X60s
CTRE Magnetic CANcoders
WCP ThroughBore CANcoder
REV Magnetic Limit Switch
Redux Robotics CANandColor

Offseason:
CTRE Falcon 500s
CTRE Kraken X60s
CTRE Magnetic CANcoders
CTRE CANranges

The issue of the internal pull-up resistor did arise on our magswitch, which is why we only used CANranges on our offseason robot.

SystemCore ran very well at all four offseason competitions we attended. The fast deploy times were very helpful for quick system checks and testing. We did have one problem that came up twice (at different competitions): right before a match, the FMS could talk to the radio but the radio couldn’t reach SystemCore. Our FTAs thought it was a network handshake issue that is usually resolved on roboRIOs using the reset button. We were able to fix it quickly both times by unplugging the Ethernet cable and plugging it back in.

We found that logs currently do not go to the Driver Station and couldn’t be downloaded through Phoenix Tuner. Only the CTRE hoot files were available there and we were trying to look at wpilog files. However, the file names (which were dynamic and random strings with the prefix “FRC_” when we weren’t connected to FMS) were able to be found in systemctl under robot.service and retrieved using scp. We also put a flash drive in SystemCore, which made getting the log files easier.

For one of our competitions, THOR on 10/19, only a day after Doyenne (10/18) and at the same venue, we were missing almost all of the logs for our matches. We don’t know why; there only seemed to be files for one or two matches.

On our offseason robot, we used three CAN buses, to separate our drivetrain, everything that would be moving up with our elevator, and our ramp (which was stationary). This saved us the cost of a CANivore, which is what we’d originally used to separate our drivetrain and the other subsystems. Initially, we had issues installing the patches on SystemCore needed to run the CANivore, so we just decided not to use it anymore and the built-in ports are great!

Currently, we process our vision on an Orange Pi and due to another team’s experiences with running PhotonVision on SystemCore have not installed PV on it. At first, we thought we’d be able to access devices on the radio network like the OrangePi through SystemCore Wi-Fi and were surprised when we couldn’t, but now when we need to access the PhotonVision dashboard we just tether.

We really like the built-in Wi-Fi, we actually prefer using it over the Vivid-Hosting radio because it’s simpler to connect to for most people on our team.

We plan on testing MotionCore on FRC Team 118 Robonauts’ FTC Everybot along with several FTC teams in our build space.