What could cause a Victor to fail?

[bizarospooky]

We were testing last night and our victor's randomly began exploding, were not quite sure why. We have been thinking it's a jittery signal somewhere but really not sure, we were thinking it's the code (which is attached if needed), but we are also thinking the Joystick. Is there anyway to tell if the joystick signal is jittery?

[TubaMorg]

I can't think of anything your code or your joysticks can do to blow up a Victor. However, a short in your wiring would do a very nice job of blowing up your Victors. Look for melted wires and figure out where the short is.

[Matt C]

Metal filings/chips are usually the #1 culprit.

[Drwurm]

Usually the only way to destroy a victor is having a short somewhere. Always use compressed air to blow off the terminals of the electrical board after you've been machining. You might also want to look closely at the terminal lugs on the victors. They can twist to touch each other, which would cause a good bit of sparking.

[Alan Anderson]

Triple-check your wiring. Make sure the only thing connected to each Victor output is a single motor. Make sure the Victor power inputs are wired to a circuit breaker and the battery return with the proper polarity. Violating either of these can easily let the magic smoke (and noise!) out of a Victor.

And then make sure you didn't drop any metal chips inside the Victors while drilling or filing or otherwise cutting metal on the robot. That's generally accepted to be the number one cause of Victor failure.

[ALIBI]

Usually the only way to destroy a victor is having a short somewhere. Always use compressed air to blow off the terminals of the electrical board after you've been machining. You might also want to look closely at the terminal lugs on the victors. They can twist to touch each other, which would cause a good bit of sparking.

I would argue that using compressed air is the wrong thing to do. The air can actually force/wedge shavings into places they do not belong. It would be best to cover all electronics and to brush, tip upside down or vacumn away the shavings. I know that I pointed the nosel of our air compressor at the electronics once to do just that and our lead engineer had a few quick words of explainaiton for me.

[GrammarNazi]

touching the transistors underneath the fans, letting them overheat, or using a coldheat soldering iron can destroy them

[Miner]

We had an interesting problem today...

I was checking the wiring that someone else had done and it all matched up. When I turned on the robot though, one of the victors wasnt working and the 40 amp braker was tripping. After double and tripple checking I noticed that a different, smaller screw had been used to attach one of the positive leads. Check to make sure that you are using the screws specific to the victors.

[Mr.G]

We have blown 3 victors over the last year by pushing the robot down the hall to get it back to the room. Power is created from the drive motors and back feeds. After a couple 5 minute times like this they won't work again.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

We were testing last night and our victor's randomly began exploding, were not quite sure why.

You do not say whether the robot was functional before you started blowing Victors. It is possible that your code is causing the Victors to rapidly change direction. Although, robots normally encounter reversals, a code error can wreak havoc with the elctronics as they interact with the motors. If you are using multiple motors in a single transmission, are the motors connected properly? Fulll throttle with the motors fighting each other could easily damage the Victors. Were the breakers buzzing? This is an indication of extremely high currents. Causes are improper wiring, shorted terminals, locked transmission, or metal flakes. As others have pointed out, my experience is about 85-90% of all failures are metal flake related.

[rfolea]

Which PWM outputs are you using?