V5 Field Connection Issues

I don’t know if this was covered in another thread or not, but my team has had V5 connection issues with the field control tower throughout this whole season. What happens is we disconnect at some point in the match (during driver control, before or after autonomous) and we have to fully turn off the control and back on. It usually connects back up quickly, but it really takes away from our driver control. Our only qualification match loss this season was because we had connection issues for a solid minute (big rip). My team and I were wondering if there is a way around connection to the field tower. Is there an order where we need to plug in the controller/connect to the robot? Do we need a new controller? Any other solutions to try? Thanks!

Team 1200Z

The way we connect the controller to the tower is

  1. turn on robot/controller
  2. start program normally
  3. select autonomous (optional)
  4. connect to control tower.

Which is counter to what we have been told to do with the Cortex.
With the Cortex the order is:

  1. connect to the field
  2. turn on Cortex
  3. turn on Controller
  4. select autonomous (if necessary)
  5. Start program (V5)

The reason for this deals with the two types of VEXNet, public vs. Competition. Having the robot on and connected to the controller before connecting to the field places you on the public VEXNet channels which are more prone to interference. Connecting to the field first places your connection in the competition VEXNet channels which are less prone to interference. I haven’t heard whether this makes a difference with V5, but I would expect the reasoning would be the same.

I believe this is the incorrect procedure - connect to tower first before running program. Green lights should appear.

^ I tried doing the turn on then connect but the robot disconnects immediately after connection with the field. The correct procedure should be connect then turn on and run. But despite these efforts, I have had a close team that tried almost everything yet had disconnects still.

I may be wrong but I don’t think it matter because if you turn on then plug in you see that the controller disconnects for a second then reconnects, I believe this is because it automatically switches you from the public channels to a competition channel.

I’m fairly certain of this as well, I seem to remember someone saying that somewhere a well, but I can’t find a source to that.

The other reason we do this is our screen program runs in driver control, so this allows us to select auto without issues.