Spike not Working

[jeremy5561]

We plugged in the spike and we were trying to operate it with the example relay code.

We have it connected to the 40 A breaker on the PD board. The light on the spike is solid orange. The other side is connected to an am-0914 gearmotor. A black/red/white cable is connected to the relay1 port on the digital sidecar. The black wire is facing towards the edge of the sidecar and the white wire is facing towards the edge of the relay.

The example relay code was deployed and ran. It is set to dio:digital module1 relaychannel:relay1 relaydirection: both directions. RelayValue is set to forward. The light stays solid orange.

The relay light on the digital sidecar is not lit. We are however able to drive the robot with the speed controllers connected to the digital sidecar when we deploy the default crio program

[SenorZ]

We had a problems with our spike not working either. Turned out the 3-wire cable just wasn't getting a good connection. When we opened the spike and plugged in to the terminal without the shell it worked fine.

Worth a shot.

[EricH]

You could also have a problem with the current running to the Spike. Spikes go on 20A breakers, which don't fit in the 40A slots.

[R43]

All active PD Board branch circuits shall be protected from overload with an appropriate value auto resetting Snap Action circuit breaker. Specifically,

Each speed controller branch circuit must be protected by one and only one 20-amp, 30-amp, or 40-amp circuit breaker on the PD Board (from the KOP or identical equivalent). No other electrical load can be connected to the breaker supplying this circuit.
Each relay module branch circuit must be protected with one and only one 20-amp circuit breaker on the PD Board (from the KOP or identical equivalent). No other electrical load can be connected to the breaker supplying this circuit.

[jeremy5561]

I tried operating a jaguar on pwm 8. doesn't work either. We also connected it to 20 amp. Still doesn't work.
1201112012

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Jeremy,
Have you checked that the ribbon cable connected to the digital I/O on the Crio is correctly assembled? Some of the cables were incorrectly assembled and this prevents correct operation of the DSC. If the relay LED on the DSC doesn't change, the Spike will not change either.

[SenorZ]

We tried something like this when our relay wasn't working:

1. Open relay in begin.vi, name it
2. Set relay value in periodic tasks.vi using a loop that cycles through the four available states of the relay every 2 seconds.
3. Load code and enable.
4. Relay SHOULD cycle through light colors every two seconds.

I attaching a pic and a copy-and-paste vi

My co-mentor came up with this method.

[Alan Anderson]

We plugged in the spike and we were trying to operate it with the example relay code.

With the exception of the illegally large circuit breaker, your description of the wiring seems fine to me.

Did you remember to use the Driver Station to enable the robot after you ran the example program?

[jeremy5561]

Yeah we did. Some very odd things are happening. After enabling TeleOp and driving the robot around for 5-10 minutes, the sidecar relay lights turn on.

Relays 2-6 turn red and green
realy 1 turns green
the spike connected to the relay turns off (removing the wire turns the light on the relay back on)

I did not use relays anywhere else in my code, that I know of. Anyone seen this behaviour before? Maybe the module is damaged.

[DonRotolo]

Verify the 12 volt supply to the sidecar from the PD Board. Are all 3 green power supply lights on the sidecar on once the cRio boots?

[Alan Anderson]

The Dashboard also reports the commanded state of the relays. Does it agree with the red and green LEDs on the Digital Sidecar? If not, you most likely have a broken sidecar.

[jeremy5561]

The dashboard doesn't seem to move at all even when the robot is being driven. All 3 lights on sidecar are green. We took the robot home to work on and didn't pack extra sidecar, I'll try replacing sidecar and maybe the module if we have another one at school tomorrow.

[jeremy5561]

I found the problem. The DB37 ribbon connection was bad. We switched the cable and it was all good. I only just came home to look up the kit of parts and found the notice about rework needed on that cable...

That wasted a good eight hours of my time. Switching the cable and ten minutes of programming later, everything was fixed.