Wiring a button for a solenoid on a T-shirt launcher HELP!

[panther83]

I am with a pre-rookie team from Washington Illinois and our first robot is a T-shirt launcher bot. We have the standard electrical board with 4 talon controllers going to 4 motors. All is controlled by an Arduino with Robot Shield, hooked up to a digital sidecar. Our problem is that we need a way to hook up a solenoid to our power distributor but also have a button wired into the PWM ports of the sidecar to distribute 12V of power to solenoid valve when pressed. I have no idea what to do but I do know how to solder, any help is awesome!

[hrench]

Though I'm pretty sure there are many ways to program this, on ours, we have a simpler solution.

On our t-shirt robot, we just use a model airplane-type servo that hits arm-type limit switches. We just have a two-barrel shooter, so all the way left, shoot left shirt--all the way right--shoot right shirt.

If you have more solenoids, you could progressively hit more limit switches the farther you move the servo.

And welcome to FIRST. you'll have a great time.

[protoserge]

Can you provide a quick sketch of your pneumatics system with the part numbers of solenoids?

The simplest solution is to use digital pins on the Arduino to trigger a relay or MOSFET that switches 12V (or 24V) to your pneumatics solenoid "on" or "off". Depending on your setup, you may need two circuits. Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMIdVarbak4) is a video that demonstrates this.

[tr6scott]

Relay board from ebay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Four-4-Channel-Relay-Module-DC-5V-With-Optocoupler-For-Arduino-PIC-ARM-AVR-DSP-/131199729536?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e8c1cff80

Video of our breakaway bot running on ardunio and robotopen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jde3CIXQ8Jw

Edit: Just realized that the video was just driving, not kicking. Here is a picture of the completed control board with the relay board driving the solenoids.

http://www.mcbride4.org/?attachment_id=74

[panther83]

The t shirt launcher uses compressed air from a 5 gallon air tanks which is fed to a reserve tank that goes to a modified sprinkler valve with a 1/4 in 12Vdc solenoid valve link- http://www.amazon.com/Electric-Solenoid-Replacement-Pipelines-Applications/dp/B00827FP26

[DonRotolo]

Here's the basic idea: Use a general-purpose digital output from the Arduino, which is 0 or 5 volts. Connect it to a relay (Radio Shack sells these; for example This One (http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=12479886&filterName=Price&filterValue=under+%243.99#), but you should be able to find something locally. It's OK that it's 3 Volts, it's not that critical.)

The arduino controls the relay. The relay switches whatever voltage you want to the solenoid valve. Done.