Help for buying robot radio

[LabViewEnthusiast]

My team (veteran) wants to buy another cRIO and robot radio so that we can have two robots or systems to work on or practice with. Being a veteran team, this is all we need to buy because we have extra of everything else (power distribution board, analog modules, etc). We have already ordered the cRIO, but we are having trouble figuring out what robot radio/wireless bridge to buy.

First of all, let me get this straight: the rookies of the 2010 year got a different driver station radio/router (WRT160N as opposed to the WRT610N) AND a new robot radio/bridge (WET610N as opposed to WGA600N). I had heard stories of both and no real, clear confirmation. The control system manuals only talk about a new router, but no bridge. Then there's these instructions that talk about something totally different from anything in the manuals, which I assume is the robot bridge I've heard and seen.

Since the veteran bridge has been discontinued, I assume we would buy this rookie bridge, WET610N? Is there any different opperation of this bridge? The above instructions talk about configuring for the field, but I hear that this was because they wanted it to be secured. Should we just leave the security settings on WiFi Protected Setup instead of going to manual?

[sciencewhiz]

You are correct that rookie teams got a different router then veteran teams. Rookie teams got the same bridge as veterans (FIRST must have had a stockpile). However, the WET610N was legal and used by a few teams this year. It does take longer to boot then the older bridge, however and has a different configuration process. Besides that, it works the same

For the setup, you do should not leave it at wifi protected setup as that will automatically setup encryption. You are correct that the document you linked sets things up for the field. You should use the instructions you linked as a guide to where everything is, and the instructions in the control system manual for the actual settings. They should be the same except for encryption.

[LabViewEnthusiast]

Thanks so much sciencewiz, that helped a lot. We'll buy the rookie WET610N and set it to the settings in the control system manuals.

One last question: how much longer does it take to boot up? Does it make a difference when booting up a robot since the cRIO boots up longer than either of them anyways?