Tally of Working IR Boards

[Mark McLeod]

With 1500+ teams receiving the IR board as an early holiday present it's impossible to use a thread to discover who's board is working well, who's isn't, or which ones are caught up in the holiday mail crush.

Thus a poll.

Try to answer only once per team. You can check to see if any of your pals have already answered.

Anyone who hasn't received their IR board yet, just wait until it comes then test it and give us your report.

Engineering is all about collecting meaningful data to act on.

[Bryan Herbst]

Do you have a preferred testing method?

Ex- Plugging into a battery, hooking it up to the 2007 RC and checking for input/output, etc.

Just checking our definition of "working."


When we first got it, some people tried simply touch two wires from a 9-volt battery to to the correct pins of the board, but with no results. Wasn't a serious test, so I'm going to wait to give a definitive answer.

[EHaskins]

I marked ours is fine, but I haven't tested the outputs. The LEDs turn on when I press a buttons, so I'm assumeing the outputs are also working fine.

[Aren_Hill]

we need to change our vote.... it did work then yeah.... watch wear bare wire ends go

[popo308]

we need to change our vote.... it did work then yeah.... watch wear bare wire ends go


so who knows where to get a new 5v regulator??
eh?

[Taylor]

Ours reads the repeating signals from channel up, channel down, volume up, and volume down. The lateral range seems to be pretty good - it reads from nearly all directions from the half-sphere surrounding it. Perhaps this could be coupled with the camera technology from last year that uses the signals to triangulate position?

[Mark McLeod]

A full checkout would be as you say--power it, train it, have it respond correctly to the remote, monitor the outputs with a scope or an RC. Post details about any failures and what worked/what failed. Normal room lighting conditions, not direct sunlight or any stress tests like that.

A basic checkout would be all but checking the digital outputs since that can be done pretty quickly and with the fewest parts.

If you have the equipment to do a full test, then do that and report.
If you can do a basic test quickly then a full test sometime later, then test the basics and report. If the digital outputs later turn out to be faulty then post about the problem and you can have a second teammate put the changed answer into the poll.

Also, use "Worked and we broke it" even if you're not sure you actually broke it as long as it worked then stopped working. You can post any useful details about that experience too.

Anyone with other ideas about what else we could be looking at?

Do you have a preferred testing method?

Ex- Plugging into a battery, hooking it up to the 2007 RC and checking for input/output, etc.

Just checking our definition of "working."

[Binome]

2273 up here in BC reccived our IR board today, and it worked flawlessly. Programmed the random old remote I found burried under some stuff years ago.
All the outputs worked, and responded clearly. Range is really nice on these vishay reccivers, making me think even more that this is some kind of field element, that will be triggered by a transmitter on the bot. Also, they decided to code protect the pic in it :(. There goes my fun of trying to decompile the hex and fetch some information about the game.

[popo308]

2273 up here in BC reccived our IR board today, and it worked flawlessly. Programmed the random old remote I found burried under some stuff years ago.
All the outputs worked, and responded clearly. Range is really nice on these vishay reccivers, making me think even more that this is some kind of field element, that will be triggered by a transmitter on the bot. Also, they decided to code protect the pic in it :(. There goes my fun of trying to decompile the hex and fetch some information about the game.

We had are IR board actually hooked into are RC and it was sending/receiving power and data back and forth until it randomly went up in smoke?? i would not recommend it until we get the official use of this board with diagnostics.

[Rapt0r9]

Our board hasn't had any problems yet. It took the first remote which we programmed it with and has been properly functioning since.

[Richard McClellan]

2158, 2468, and 2538 got together today for a pre-season workshop on programming basics for FIRST. Our last project of the day was hooking up the IR sensor to a Vex bot, which allowed us to drive our vex bot around with a TV remote :yikes: It was definitely exciting to get it working, and surprisingly easy. I'm definitely looking forward to whatever we have to do with it in the actual competition....only 14 days to go!

Here's a video of our working vex bot with IR sensor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUx2w3J_jDk

[T3_1565]

2158, 2468, and 2538 got together today for a pre-season workshop on programming basics for FIRST. Our last project of the day was hooking up the IR sensor to a Vex bot, which allowed us to drive our vex bot around with a TV remote :yikes: It was definitely exciting to get it working, and surprisingly easy. I'm definitely looking forward to whatever we have to do with it in the actual competition....only 14 days to go!

Here's a video of our working vex bot with IR sensor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUx2w3J_jDk

can you do this with the big bot now???

[Richard McClellan]

Oooh....now there's an idea, we definitely could :P

Maybe I'll do that a little later tonight if I can get my hands on our robot from last year :)

[daltore]

You can't just do it with that robot David showed us that spun around fast enough to give him a static shock? Surely that would be lots of fun to add little motors onto to pick up sodas.

[popo308]

does anyone know where to get the little 5v regulator for the board?
are 5v regulator went up in smoke..:ahh:

[keen101]

I put "Partial operation but gets the job done"

just because it worked fine before, and seems to work fine after repair.

I did test the outputs before with a multimeter.

I still have to test them now after repair. I'll report back when I've done that.

[Ed Sparks]

Ours works as advertised .......

No issues ...... :cool:

[Aarnat]

The Robo-Lion's (2199) IR board doesn't work.

The board turn's on an the error LED turns on. When we try to program it ( giving it power after holding down the program button and holding the button for 2 seconds as indicated by the manual), the LED turn's on (and then off when we release the button), but doesn't flash to indicate that it is ready to program. The error LED doesn't flash to indicate that there is a problem at all, but there is obviously a problem if it can't program. Several people have tryed to getting it to work but no sucess. We think it is a defective one, but if you know otherwise tell me.

Thanks,
Aarnat

[Richard McClellan]

The Robo-Lion's (2199) IR board doesn't work.

The board turn's on an the error LED turns on. When we try to program it ( giving it power after holding down the program button and holding the button for 2 seconds as indicated by the manual), the LED turn's on (and then off when we release the button), but doesn't flash to indicate that it is ready to program. The error LED doesn't flash to indicate that there is a problem at all, but there is obviously a problem if it can't program. Several people have tryed to getting it to work but no sucess. We think it is a defective one, but if you know otherwise tell me.

Thanks,
Aarnat
The instructions are a little bit confusing - the error LED will "blink off," then one second later, the CMD0 LED comes on. So, you shouldn't be expecting the error LED to come back on like a "full blink cycle" or anything like that. Is your CMD0 LED coming on 1 second after you release the PRGM button? Just don't be expecting the error LED to come back on again after it goes off....

[Aarnat]

richardmcc2,
Once we release the programming button, everything stops: no LED's light or blink or anything.

[Richard McClellan]

richardmcc2,
Once we release the programming button, everything stops: no LED's light or blink or anything.

Hmm, I guess you may be right then. As long as you're holding the programming button for 2 seconds after powering up and then releasing, then the board may need to be flashed with the firmware again via the programming port, which probably has to be done by DivSys or FIRST.

[keen101]

Your LED's aren't backwards are they?


you could test them by taking a spare LED and touching it's leads the opposite way to where the LED is soldered.

[Chris_Elston]

Here's a video of our working vex bot with IR sensor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUx2w3J_jDk

Richardmcc2,

I couldn't help but notice in your video the output led's flash repeatly.

The operation of the IR is when it recieves a learned command, it toggles an output for 100msec.

Your outputs in your video flash.

Is that because:

1. Your remote control is repeatly sending a signal to the IR controller?

2. Your operator "thumb" is pressing on the remote control repeatly?

The remote control we are using only sends one IR command per-press of the button, even if you hold it down for any length of time.

Just curious...

BTY, our board works great out of the box.

[Anne_droid]

does anyone know where to get the little 5v regulator for the board?
are 5v regulator went up in smoke..:ahh:

DigiKey or Mouser (online), unless you are fortunate enough to have a real electronics store in your area (Radio Shack doesn't count).

[keen101]

Richardmcc2,

Is that because:

1. Your remote control is repeatedly sending a signal to the IR controller?

The remote control we are using only sends one IR command per-press of the button, even if you hold it down for any length of time.




I would assume it's repeatedly sending the signal.

I have tested two different remotes with our board. One was a cheap DVD remote that only sent the signal once. The second repeatedly sent the signal. If you read the IR manual it talks about using a remote that repeatedly sends the signal.

[bronxbomber92]

Ours did work, but now magically doesn't. We have no idea why. Would it be best to contact FIRST or buy a new one?

[thefro526]

Has anyone used it for auto-mode changes yet? Perhaps on an old bot?

[galewind]

our first board fried (even replaced the voltage regulator).

We ordered two replacements from IFI -- the first one worked like a charm -- haven't tested the 2nd yet.

[Dad1279]

DigiKey or Mouser (online), unless you are fortunate enough to have a real electronics store in your area (Radio Shack doesn't count).

I jumpered the on board regulator, and now feed the board with 5 volts. Works fine now, and worked fine before I accidentally reversed the polarity.

[Nuggets08]

Our first IR board was DOA, it seemed that the 5V regulator got fried before it even got to us. We got another one, and now it works great. We used the remote on it from 50 ft away, which was nice.