Issues with two separate roboRIO 2.0s: 1. Copper fragment disappeared in DIO slot; 2. Red light not turning on

[EdmundKim]

Hello, sir or madam:

My name is Ed Kim and I'm a mentor of FIRST Robotics Competition team 5719 in Toronto, Ontario.  I'm writing about the issues experienced with two roboRIO 2.0s.  I'm not a tech mentor, but my lead programming is sitting with me, describing the issues and listening to any feedback that can be provided.

Both roboRIO 2.0s were bought on April 21.  I'll call the first one "1st roboRIO 2.0".  I'll the second one "2nd roboRIO 2.0":

With the 1st roboRIO 2.0, a fragment of copper wire fell into the DIO slot area.  (The fragment appeared as the result of stripping a wire without covering the roboRIO 2.0.  The team knows better next time.)  In attempts to remove the copper fragment unfortunately, it disappeared further into the DIO slot area, out of sight.  I believe that the fragment is hiding within the device. 

I read about utilizing a hand-held vacuum cleaner or opening the roboRIO 2.0 to retrieve the fragment.  However, I wanted to receive permissions from the tech advisor at NI before I attempt this.  As a result, the roboRIO failed to turn on after that.

With the 2nd roboRIO 2.0, the power LED indicated red immediately upon plugging the roboRIO 2.0 into the control panel and turning on the power.  A FRC alumni thinks that the roboRIO 2.0 has an internal short circuit.  The roboRIO 2.0 hasn't been touched since.

Any suggestions on how I can move forward towards a solution for both roboRIO 2.0s are very much appreciated.  Thanks for your time.

Yours truly,

Edmund Kim

FRC 5719

David & Mary Thomson Collegiate Institute

Toronto, Ontario

[BoKnows]

I would expect both of these devices to have something along the lines of the copper fragment issue mentioned for the first.  It's a bit surprising to hear the first isn't turning on.  I'd expect it to be in the same state as the second (red LED).

When you have that red LED, you can connect to the driver station and click the lightning tab to find out where the roboRIO device is seeing a short.  That allows you to focus your attention on that power rail.

Yes, you should be looking at options like canned air or vacuum to clean up the area where you know there's a short, or copper wiring.  Removing that from the board typically clears up the issues you're seeing.  If the canned air isn't working, a thin screwdriver gently under the plastic can help dislodge shavings as well.

Generally, be gentle but feel free to try to clean out the areas where you know there are shavings.

[EdmundKim]

Hello, BoKnows:

Thanks very much for your time in reading my inquiry and offering the suggestions.  The programmer and I opened the casing of both roboRIO 2.0s and utilized a compressed air duster.  Unfortunately, copper shavings were not seen in both.  (It may've fallen out from the 1st roboRIO 2.0 upon opening the casing.)

Below is a screenshot of the FRC driver station.  The screenshot is identical for both roboRIO 2.0s after they were connected to the power again:

Additionally, the red LED light remains lit on both.  At this point, my programmer and I are seeking any advice please for next steps.  Please pardon me for asking as the programmer and I are relatively very new to this trouble-shooting process.  Any assistance is much appreciated.

Yours truly,

Edmund  

[BoKnows]

A quick glance at the driver station screenshot is showing we haven't yet connected to the driver station.  We'd need to see the communications light turn green in order to get the information from the lightning tab.

Some of those shavings get pretty small.  Ideally, we'd find which power rail it is and focus our attention there.  Typical ways to clear that are to use some canned air around the affected connections or slide a tiny screwdriver gently underneath the connection to clear out anything between the board and the connection.  It looks like you've got the canned air attempt resolved with the air compressor (I'm assuming you gently hit each of the connections since we didn't know which one specifically was the issue).  The next step would be the gentle screwdriver sliding along the bottom to dislodge anything that got stuck beneath.

[EdmundKim]

Hi, BoKnows:

I'm sorry for my late reply.  My school was closed late last week for the Canada Day long weekend.  Thus, my student and I wasn't able to test the roboRIO 2.0s until this morning.  Happy Independence Day to you and the team at National Instruments.

Thanks kindly for your suggestions.  The connectors were gently hit with the air can again.  The space was clear between the board and the connectors for both roboRIO 2.0s.

Regarding the 1st roboRIO 2.0, the red LED light appears green now, which is great.  The "status" light is blinking orange, on and off continuously.  My student found the instructions, attached and albeit for the roboRIO 1.0, instructing to contact National Instruments when this happens.

Regarding 2nd roboRIO 2.0, the red LED light still persists.  Just to let you know, the 2nd roboRIO 2.0 was never able to light green, even after the device was installed fresh out of the box and away from debris.  

Upon attempting to reimage both roboRIO 2.0s, they were unfortunately not able to.  A screen shot was captured about this.  (A robot was tested again with a roboRIO 1.0 and it worked fine.)  Thus, the inability to reimage both devices, plus the continued red light on the 2nd roboRIO 2.0, are the present issues.

Any continued advice and additional time are much appreciated.  Take care,

Edmund

[BoKnows]

For the one with a green LED, I think that's a red herring at the moment.  If the status light is flashing continuously, it means it isn't finding an image. The red power LED behavior is a part of the image so right now it isn't in a state where we can make a determination.  

We have a couple of ways we can get that device back into a good state to provide information.  The first is we can take the SD card from the other roboRIO 2.0 device and move it to this one.  If we do that, I'd expect we'd see the red LED return unless we cleared things out with the canned air.  Did we ever successfully connect to the driver station to allow us to focus on a specific power rail?

The other way to get it back into a good state is to image.  For the roboRIO 2.0, I wouldn't use the roboRIO Imaging Tool.  The instructions for imaging a roboRIO 2.0 are on this document: https://docs.wpilib.org/en/stable/docs/software/roborio-info/roborio2-imaging.html We'd want to follow this process instead.

The instructions for the roboRIO aren't the same as the roboRIO 2.0.  With the roboRIO 2.0, we'd want to reimage the SD card instead of going through the steps for the roboRIO.  The difference here is the flash memory on the roboRIO was replaced with the SD card for the roboRIO 2.0 to make it easier to swap between devices quickly (or to swap between entire programs making it possible to have a "gold standard" you hold onto while working on updates without worrying about getting back to a good state before matches).

It's a bit concerning it showed up red.  Though, I'd still want to go through the steps listed here first to see if we can clear it.  We want to get a good image on both roboRIO 2.0 devices.  We want to connect those to a driver station.  While connected, we want to look at that tab to determine which power rail we're working with.  From there, canned air and gently sliding a smaller screwdriver between the board and the rail to see if we can dislodge any shavings.  Before attempting any other troubleshooting steps, I'd want to get these three done and get information about what we see.

Hope you had a great holiday! 

[EdmundKim]

Hi, BoKnows:

Thanks for all your advice and repeated step-by-step instructions.  The team apologizes for initially following the directions for the roboRIO 1.0, not the roboRIO 2.0.  The team show know better.

Attempts were made to connect both the 1st and 2nd roboRIO 2.0s to the driver station, but both attempts were still unsuccessful.

Currently, the attempt is trying to reimage the SD card using the balenaEtcher platform.  However, "when the target is sought after, it's not found".  A screen capture was included in this message to show you where there students are at.  They've tried to locate

Would it be possible please to guide the team?

Edmund

[BoKnows]

There's no need to apologize.  I have an item on my lengthy "to do" list to put together some documentation to detail the differences between roboRIO and roboRIO 2.0 for that error.  It's a common point of confusion because the community has been solving the problem the same way for seven years.  Now, there's suddenly a new way.

In order to connect to the driver station, you'll need an image and the team number assigned to the roboRIO.  If we're struggling to image, we should focus efforts there first.

In the screenshot, how was the SD Card connected to the PC?  I'd expect it was connected directly to a card reader on the PC.  Is that how it was done?  There shouldn't be anything special about the roboRIO at that point in time as it's just imaging a SD card using the PC's hardware.

[EdmundKim]

Hi, BoKnows:

I'm sorry for the delayed reply.  Thanks for your time and work detailing the differences between the roboRIOs 1.0 and 2.0 for future users.  The work sounds like a lot to do, among the many other tasks to do.  Your time's been much appreciated by the community.

Below is the response from my student:

"The microSD card was imaged with BalenaEtcher using the 'FRC_roboRIO2_2022_v4.0.img' file inside the SD Images folder.  The SD card was inserted into the roboRio 2.0.  However, when it was turned on, the imaging tool could not find the roboRio 2.0.  Its status LED was continuously blinking orange, but the power light was green.  Connecting was attempted via wifi and the USB.  Also, two different USB printer cables were tried with neither working.  The radio was swapped as well, but that didn't make the roboRIO 2.0 work either.  It was also booted into Safe Mode by pressing down the reset button on the roboRio 2.0 for about five seconds.  The status LED was temporarily a constant orange color, but after a few seconds started blinking continuously again."

At this step, my student spent much time searching through various online threads in hopes of finding a solution, but wasn't successful.  Thus, I'm hoping to receive any additional help again as it'll be much appreciated,

Ed

[BoKnows]

If the SD Card isn't being read, I wouldn't expect Safe Mode to behave any differently.  The solid LED is the device booting up.  The flashing is "I can't read the SD Card" which would be true either way.  The printer cable is a connection with fewer variables.  I wouldn't expect the radio to work if the printer cable isn't.  Regardless, I wouldn't expect either to work if the status LED is flashing continuously.  Those are steps we take after we get the SD card read.

For a quick sanity check, the name you're using is leaving out the extension, correct?  It was actually .img.zip at the end?  If so, that's the image I'd expect.  If not, we'd want to make sure we're using the .img.zip files in that folder.

It looks like it's my turn to apologize for being slow to reply.  Hope your summer is going well!