Hey Y’all,
Was checking the Vex Website and noticed that the Current Gyroscope has been discontinued! Does this mean that a new Gyro is coming out shortly?
5 Likes
I certainly hope so…
I’d like some new sensors
6 Likes
All I want is some sort of expander for the measly 8 sensor ports on the V5 (considering a couple sensors use 2 ports each). That or a new array of sensors you can actually use with the 12 extra ports on the V5. But considering they didn’t announce anything was coming at worlds, I doubt it.
6 Likes
With odometry, you literally have 2 ports. At least an expander is well overdue. Using sensors is a super important skill that translates directly to the real world. Limiting the use of sensors with something as silly as the amount of LEGACY ports is not a good look. I hope V5 sensors come soon.
12 Likes
The tming here is a bit odd, considering development seems very much active on a gyro-based drivetrain in VexCode V5 Blocks - this feature was added only three weeks ago:
My fingers are crossed for a single sensor with gyroscope, accelerometer, and compass all integrated, like this sensor on Adafruit. Hopefully that would drive down the cost and not use too many ports.
One of my worries about the shift to all smart ports is that there are only 20 of them (not counting the one connected to the radio).
As VEX decided to make each sensor or motor be the master controller for the bus, connecting multiple sensors to the same bus (i.e., port) is impossible. Because of this, a “smart port expander” would need to manage multiple RS485 buses separately and exchange data between them. This would be expensive, impractical, and would introduce very high latency (even higher than the 10ms hit we get to begin with).
The legacy Cortex had 8 digital ports, 12 analog ports (that could be used as digital ports if required), and 10 motor ports (that could be Y-cabled to connect even more motors). The V5 brain has 20 smart ports for both sensors and motors, and 8 ADI ports for simple buttons (once all the other sensors get replaced by “smart port” equivalents). No matter how you do the math, we could be looking at a significant issue of running out of ports with the new V5 system once 3-wire sensors get phased out in favor of smart port sensors.
Edit: I’m also a bit worried about what sensor will go next. It’d be a shame if, let’s say, encoders were to be discontinued without any warning and teams who wanted to use tracking wheels were just out of luck until the (hypothetical) V5 encoder came out…
4 Likes
If you look is VEXcode header files there is some partly defined stuff for seemingly the new v5 sensors…
DeviceTypeLedSensor
DeviceTypeAbsEncSensor
DeviceTypeBumperSensor
DeviceTypeImuSensor
DeviceTypeRangeSensor
DeviceTypeTetherSensor
DeviceTypeBrainSensor
DeviceTypeGyroSensor
DeviceTypeSonarSensor
Seems interesting…
typedef enum {
kDeviceTypeNoSensor = 0,
kDeviceTypeMotorSensor = 2,
kDeviceTypeLedSensor = 3,
kDeviceTypeAbsEncSensor = 4,
kDeviceTypeBumperSensor = 5,
kDeviceTypeImuSensor = 6,
kDeviceTypeRangeSensor = 7,
kDeviceTypeRadioSensor = 8,
kDeviceTypeTetherSensor = 9,
kDeviceTypeBrainSensor = 10,
kDeviceTypeVisionSensor = 11,
kDeviceTypeAdiSensor = 12,
kDeviceTypeGyroSensor = 0x46,
kDeviceTypeSonarSensor = 0x47,
kDeviceTypeGenericSensor = 128,
kDeviceTypeGenericSerial = 129,
kDeviceTypeUndefinedSensor = 255
} V5_DeviceType;
8 Likes
Wow, that’s very interesting!
Also going to leave this here:
My thoughts on the new sensors
I’m intrigued by the AbsEncSensor. An absolute encoder? That would potentially be pretty cool for lifts, arms, and the like. You wouldn’t need a limit switch to “home” the device whenever it’s turned on (that’s my understanding anyway, I’m definitely not an expert in the field of encoders). This is probably the “Rotation Sensor” referenced.
ImuSensor seems to be confirming my suspicion of an accel/gyro combination unit, which would be good to see. (Although there’s also a GyroSensor listed. Maybe it’s just a 3-axis accelerometer? The V5 page doesn’t make it clear whether the V5 3-axis gyro and 3-axis accelerometer are different sensors…)
I wonder what the difference between RangeSensor and SonarSensor is. Is a different distance sensor in the works? Infrared perhaps? Or RangeSensor might be the LiDAR, although you’d expect them to have chosen a more descriptive name.
BrainSensor looks odd. Maybe it’s for connecting two brains together? TetherSensor seems like it could be for controllers.
I’m a bit confused as to why jpearman pointed it out below.GyroSensor and SonarSensor are in hexadecimal while all the others are in decimal. Perhaps we’ll never know. But these are also the two sensors that have close equivalents (ImuSensor and RangeSensor). These might refer to the legacy 3-wire versions, but there’s already an AdiSensor listed…
Oh, and I’d be a bit surprised to see a V5 gyro so soon considering the V5 3-wire expander hasn’t even been released yet. You’d think that’d be easy, as it’s essentially a copy-paste of the Cortex M0 circuit out of the Brain and into an external sensor. (Also odd that that sensor is not listed in the V5_DeviceType enum that @Codec brought up, unless it’s the AdiSensor one.)
4 Likes
so these are in the header files just for IQ compatibility, (meaning that IQ has sensors that we access as kDeviceTypeGyroSensor and kDeviceTypeSonarSensor), notice they have unusual values assigned.
3 Likes
Ships in 8 weeks*
*
Weeks is in valve time.
2 Likes
Look up the chip (LY3100ALH) used on current current sensors and you will see it is no longer available…Part shortage/discontinuing will at some point catch up with every manufacturer. No with that said I do hope a replacement is imminent as this gage is a perfect game for using gyro to run a great programming skill, and something students should learn as part of determining best path.
3 Likes
I really want vex to sell a 100$ spinning lidar sensor. Similar to the dozen types like this you can find between 70 and 100$.
10 Likes
Might this be so that you could make a fully autonomous robot, except this time in VRC?
This robot used one of these 80$ sensors and did all processing on a cortex. So it is possible. Entire project was done in 6 weeks by a college freshman and a college sophomore.
Highschool students in collaboration over a whole year could definitely do cool stuff.
6 Likes
Oh I was thinking about the starstruck bot
Completely forgot about that NBN bot
I know they probably aren’t at liberty to say, but could Joearman or DRow please let us know if the 3 wire expander will arrive before November? I am planning out all of my sensors and I would like to know this important information.
5 Likes
Ya I linked that one because it’s a lot more in line with what is reasonable for teams to do. All ROBOTC code etc.
The starstruck one used a Raspi and a lot more external libraries. It isn’t outside the realm of possibilities by any means just assumes more familiarity with c++ and libraries.
Still the same lidar though, and that’s the lidar type I hope we see from VEX.
Oops. Fixed now. Should be “Discontinued. Available While Supplies Last” for all sites where we still have stock
13 Likes
When is a new one going to come out?
3 Likes
The new version of VEXcode V5 Blocks - v1.0.7 says in the New features:
“Added features and blocks to support the new V5 Inertial Sensor”
This implies something is in the works.
5 Likes