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View Full Version : Very odd Spike behavior


JamesCH95
07-02-2014, 10:02
While doing a functionality check and debug we ran into an issue that has all of our students and mentors stumped.

We trigger a relay output in code, the state light turns green on the DSC, and the spike momentarily blips "forward", but then the state light on the spike just goes off. Not orange, not green, not red, just off, and there's no output from the spike.

The problem doesn't seem to follow any specific DSC output (tried 2), pwm cables (tried 2), or code. It sort of seems to follow spikes, namely old ones work (sometimes, but we only have 1) and new ones never work (tried 3).

Clear as mud I'm sure.

Anyone run into this type of issue before? Any advice on where to look next? We're really not used to debugging spike issues... they have always been dead-nuts-reliable for us in the past.

cgmv123
07-02-2014, 10:08
Is it the fuse on the Spike? What load is on it?

JamesCH95
07-02-2014, 10:10
Is it the fuse on the Spike? What load is on it?

Tried 20A fuse and 20A breaker.

Load has been swapped between a ViAir compressor and basic strip LED lights.

Edit: the state light on the Spike would only go off when we tried to drive it forward, when the robot was disabled or the signal to the spike was otherwise set to "neutral" the state light would return to orange. No lights on the PD ever lit up indicating an open breaker and the fuse/breaker on the Spikes never blew/tripped.

JamesCH95
07-02-2014, 11:27
I think I found the answer to the problem, searching FTW.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125701&highlight=spike

TheJoe
07-02-2014, 14:03
I think I found the answer to the problem, searching FTW.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125701&highlight=spike

In that link I explained how we had the same problem and what we did to fix it.

We changed "kOn" to "kForward" and it solved our problem.
Thats using Java, and I've no idea how you code and if it's similar with different programming languages

JamesCH95
07-02-2014, 14:06
In that link I explained how we had the same problem and what we did to fix it.

We changed "kOn" to "kForward" and it solved our problem.
Thats using Java, and I've no idea how you code and if it's similar with different programming languages

We do use Java, and our robot exhibited all of the same symptoms described in that thread, so I think we've got it.