Victor 888 PWM Randomly Fail

[Dr.Gusta]

So last night we were testing our robot and all of our Victor 888's were working and then one by one they died (two of them). They still turn on but keep blinking three times (PWM Error). The two that died were running the two bag motors on our 100:1 Versa-Planetary gearbox. Has anyone had similar issues? This would not be that big of an issue if we were not in the last week of season.

[Botwoon]

What have you done to diagnose the issue so far?

[Dr.Gusta]

We have ruled out a coding error because we used it last night and when the bot was powered on again the next day they did not work after no code changes. We tried switching PWM cables and blowing it out in case some alum dust got on or in it. We have also tried other PWM ports on the sidecar to no avail. That is how we have narrowed it down to the Victor. I don't think something shorted out because if it did the thing would just cease to function. Right?

[Botwoon]

Not necessarily.

Inspect everything, and don't rule anything out unless it's been checked, double checked, and replaced if possible. Inspect the mechanism that the victors are driving, thoroughly. I'm willing to bet that the fact that the Victors were both involved in the operation of a single mechanism is not a coincidence.

You can replace the Victors to know immediately whether or not they actually failed, but I would personally want to know what is the cause of the issue before I risked losing another pair.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

So last night we were testing our robot and all of our Victor 888's were working and then one by one they died (two of them). They still turn on but keep blinking three times (PWM Error). The two that died were running the two bag motors on our 100:1 Versa-Planetary gearbox. Has anyone had similar issues? This would not be that big of an issue if we were not in the last week of season.

Earlier in the build season we had an Andersen Connector with the power cables reversed. That caused us to apply power in reverse to the robot. Our Victor 888's did not fail then, but later started failing just as you describe. We are in the middle of swapping out all 7 of our victors.

Did you have any sort of reverse power to the victors earlier in the build season?

[Dr.Gusta]

I checked our Anderson connector and it is properly labled plus all of the other victors work fine and now we have swapped victors with the drive base ones so we can test the arm and everything seems to be running fine
. Does anyone know where we can buy 2 victors local (Inland Empire) Another team?

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Doc,
Please contact IFI with this issue. They may have some suggestions.

[Dr.Gusta]

How can I contact IFI I can't find any contact info.

[Aren_Hill]

How can I contact IFI I can't find any contact info.

http://www.vexrobotics.com/contact

-Aren

[Dr.Gusta]

I was able to solve the problem by pushing in the PWM cables in with a bit of force as stated here http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124033