Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Digging up an old thread here, but I am curious to know if this issue was resolved. Our team is having a similar issue. Red when the power is on and no PWM cable plugged in, but NO light once the PWM is inserted.

We tested to see if information is coming through the PWM and it is. We checked the fuse (never blown). We tested the wiring and all is fine.

We went through three spikes (insert a new spike, the compressor works for a match or two and then quits) in a single event trying to get this resolved! Does anyone have a clue what this could mean?

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

The "red when powered, off when connected" symptom doesn't seem to match any reasonably likely failure I can think of. It implies that the Spike thinks it's getting commanded Reverse without any control input at all, and that it thinks it's being commanded both sides on when it's probably getting a "both sides off" signal.

I'd have to inspect the wiring, and watch the LEDs on the Digital Sidecar during operation, in order to have any clue what might be causing multiple Spikes to eventually go crazy like that.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Alan-

Thank you for the quick response. Though our robot is locked up for our next competition, I can tell you that on the DSC, the PWM for the compressor is connected to a relay port and the light is green when enabled.

I can run more diagnostics with the robot Friday, but I kept the spikes outside of the bag so I could try to see if they were bad.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

It's also possible that you have one of the Spikes whose neutral light has a distinct reddish tinge.
That would be a normal failure mode where neutral glows but green (forward) is broken on the Spike.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Mark-

First, a big thank you to your team. Without your website on pneumatics, I don't think we could have gotten it working this year!

I'm wondering if your comments are related. I can tell you that the orange light was present when the compressor worked for the couple matches prior to failure.

Does the Red light without information signal mean failure and therefore a bad/dead Spike?

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Almost certainly it means the Spike should be replaced, but the real question is what about the situation is breaking your Spikes.
I would suggest opening one of the broken ones up and taking some photographs of both sides.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

If the green part of the LED itself has failed, then a pure red would be expected whenever the "forward" relay was not energized (Off or Reverse), and it would turn off when "forward" was called for (On or Forward).

I can imagine a double wiring fault putting excess voltage on the Spike control input and frying the "forward" optocoupler circuit path. I'd start looking for pinched wires and exposed conductors, on both the relay cable and anything carrying battery voltage.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Thank you both for your help thus far. Any ideas are better than what I have which is none.

Here are pictures of both sides of the Spike Relay uncovered.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Check your wiring on Sidecar.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Dinoyan- The spike was connected to the relay port #2. When that PWM cable was connected to another spike (connected to a wheel), the wheel turned continuously like the compressor should.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Maybe this is related, maybe not. During the same competition, we were having a terrible time with our drive train not functioning during teleop of matches. It wasn't until after all our matches were done for the event that we realized what was causing this. Our 4 CIMs driving the robot were connected to only 2 Jaguars (2 CIMs to each Jaguar). Therefore the power kept resetting or cycling because we were drawing so much current.

So could the power cycling on a different circuit somehow affect the spike which was trying to run at the same time? Being parallel circuits on the PDB I'm not certain if this would cause a surge or something...

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

That's not just a bad idea, it's against the rules. Your robot should not have passed inspection.

However, I don't think that particular wiring error would cause a Spike to fail.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Alan, I agree completely! Not sure how we did pass with such an error, resulting in a very frustrating weekend. I take the blame on that one as even at a second year team, I should have seen that violation of <R52>.