LabVIEW Toolkit for LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT bugs

[fredb]

Hi John et all;

I was happily playing with the Direct Connect toolkit using LV 8.20. All was well until I opened up a LV Project. I saw some messages fly by regarding the NXT. I realized I had left some VIs which call on the Direct Connect toys open. Eventually I got back to playing, and I can no longer use the Direct Connet VIs. I can still use the NXT Toolkit VIs, but these aren't as much fun, are they?

I have uninstalled the NXT Toolkit, re-installed, and mass compiled. Several times. I am getting the following errors during the mass compile (and I don't recall getting them the first time)...

#### Starting Mass Compile: 2007 Feb 01 5:31:21 AM   Directory: "C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.2\vi.lib\addons\NXTToolkit" Could not load (C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.2\vi.lib\addons\NXTToolkit\gcompiler\GetType.llb\Type Code.ctl) because (C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.2\vi.lib\Utility\GetType.llb\Type Code.ctl) in memory Could not load (C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.2\vi.lib\addons\NXTToolkit\gcompiler\GetType.llb\Type Descriptor I16 Array.ctl) because (C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.2\vi.lib\Utility\GetType.llb\Type Descriptor I16 Array.ctl) in memory Could not load (C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.2\vi.lib\addons\NXTToolkit\gcompiler\GetType.llb\Type Enum.ctl) because (C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.2\vi.lib\Utility\GetType.llb\Type Enum.ctl) in memory #### Finished Mass Compile: 2007 Feb 01 5:32:48 AM

I am doing the mass compile right from the get started screen.

If I then create a trivial VI, say, FindNXT, and compile it, I will get 4 errors as follows (and I would include pretty pictures, but have not been able to figure out how to copy them in...):

ERROR: Indexing tunnels are not supported.

ERROR: An error occurred during parsing. Node was unable to be parsed. ((Class: CompoundArithmetic)  (VI: NXTToolkit.DC.FindNXT.vi))

ERROR: Can't open SubVI. (findNXT.vi)

(Ok - fine - that's 3, but the 2nd one occurs twice). The errors it points you to are right where you would expect them (based on the message) in the findNXT VI (the index tunnel in the while loop going to InfoFromResource, and the compound And and Or.

Any thoughts? (No - asking to re-install LV8.20 would not be fair!)

Thanks,

fredb.

[fredb]

Many thanks to John who very gently suggested I try the LV Run arrow instead of the NXT Toolkit Compile. In my defense (yes - my ego needs this - especially now) well, umm - nope - don't think I'll be able to talk myself out of this one. As I understand it, the errors on the mass compile are a LV8.20 anomaly. Safe to ignore. If I'm wrong (yet again) I'm sure someone will correct this.

Thanks again,

fredb.

[Leanne S.]

Hello all,

I am new to the forum (as well as the NXTtoolkit) but have learned a lot in reading the posts.  I have a question reguarding monitor/control of the Mindstorm NXT via Labview.  I am trying to write a VI that will handle both writes and reads from the NXT device (e.g. do something (move) until a senor is tripped).  I am getting an error when I try to create multiple NXT objects in the VI.  Also I am getting errors when I try to use one NXT object to both read and write (Error-1073807339 occured at createNXT.vi) to the devide.  Any suggestions?

Leanne

P.S. I should mention I am doing all of this via Bluetooth and my connection works fine.

[JamesB.]

Hi Leanne,

I'm glad that you have found some of the other posts helpful.  From the description of your problem, it sounds like in your VI you have forked the NXTObject wire.  I assume one fork is handling writes (move the motors) and the other fork is handling reads (sensor values).  As long as you have forked the wire at the appropriate location (i.e. after you call createNXT, but before you start your read/write loop), I would expect that to work fine.

In any case, the error code you've indicated is a timeout error.  (Select the Explain Error... option from LabVIEW's Help menu to get descriptions for other error codes, or use LabVIEW's error handling VIs.)  Timeout errors indicate that, for some reason, communication with the NXT has been lost.  You mentioned you are using Bluetooth; is it possible your program drove the NXT out of range of your computer, which caused communication to be lost?  Or could the NXT have been turned off, either manually or on its own?  When you attempt to read data from the NXT, are you sure there is always data ready to be read?

Please keep us posted on whether these suggestions help resolve your problem.

[Leanne UNM]

Thanks James,

I did resolve the problem by forking the wire after the createNXT block.  Also, I found that restarting LabView took care of the error I was seeing before.  Not sure why?  Thanks for the info on LabView's Explain Error option but when I entered the code, it came back as undefined. 

Leanne

[MichaelAivaliotis]

I can't get off the ground with this toolkit. My LV 8.2 keeps crashing upon mass compile of the toolkit.
It hangs when it encounters this spot:



Then it pops up a fatal error:

Message Edited by Michael Aivaliotis on 04-08-2007 09:10 PM

[Peter Lamb]

Michael,

Well, I can't promise that I know a solution to this problem, but I'm thinking that you could try a couple of things.  One would be a repair of LabVIEW.  It could be that something low-level in your LabVIEW directories has become corrupt, and this could potentially solve that problem.  I would then do a re-installation of the NXT Toolkit for LabVIEW.  At that point, can you even program with the NXT VI's?  Mass compiling will DEFINITELY save compile time of .rxe's down the road, but they can compile without doing a mass compile first.  See if it's functional first, then try the mass compile.

Let us know if it works for you or not!

Pete

[d.sorensen]

Hi all,

There seems to be an anomaly when using "unflatten from string".  The type wired to the bottom left control does not seem to impact the output type.  The output is always a cluster with nine I32 elements.

I am running LV 8.2 - Am I incorrectly using unflatten from string?

Dave

[Albert.Geven]

If you try to get help you see that the function you are using is not the 8.2 unflatten from string.
The real one has more inputs to define its behaviour.

The icon is the same but the labels is also not available.
Is this the one from the nxt toolkit?

[d.sorensen]

Yes.  I am using and referring to the unflatten from string in the NXT toolkit.