Spike Red Light?
 

I have one of the Innovation First Spikes hooked up to the PD board. Nothing else is connected to the spike, nothing to the M+ and M- and nothing to the pwm port.

When I turn on the robot, the spike has a solid red light.
According to the User Guide for the spike, red means reverse. However, if I take a multimeter to the M+ and M- terminals, i get 0V

When I take the multimeter to the 12V and GND terminals, I get 12V so the spike is definitely getting power. And definitely no chance of reverse polarity because 12V terminal is connected to the red on the PDB and GND is connected to black on the PDB.
Also, fuse looks intact.

I am really puzzled by this and I hope you guys can help.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

I seem to remember getting a solid red light with no PWM cable attached, but I can't say for sure. See if the light goes out when you plug the PWM cable in to the Relay port on the Digital Sidecar.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Nope, they dont change color.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Have you tired a different spike and got the same problems?

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

we have 3 spikes and they all do the same thing.
2 are innovation first, one is the vex pro one.

Is it maybe because we aren't sending it a signal?

The B on the spike PWM port is where the GND of the PWM cable goes right?

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

When the spike outputs +12V, the LED will be green. When it outputs -12V, the LED will be red. It will be yellow when it outputs 0V.

But IIRC, the light is red when it doesn't have signal.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Note that Spike Relays do NOT get connected to PWM outputs on the Digital Sidecar; instead they must be connected to "Relay" outputs. And yes, B indicates Black (Ground)

Also, actually remove the fuse and check it, or measure its continuity.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

In my experience the "yellow" for no signal looks very red. If it turns green when you set it to forward and red (generally a slightly different red, although I don't think I could say which is which out of context) when you set it to reverse then you're fine.

It sounds like the spike is operating correctly.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Actually, according to the user guide on the IFI website, the OFF state with both M+ & M- at ground is indicated by the LED glowing orange.
Is the LED really red or does it look somewhat orange?

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

I'd vote that the neutral color of the signal light just happens to appear to be a shade of orange/red.
We have debates about what color the real neutral shade is all the time.

The fuse is also good if you have a light. It goes out altogether if there's no fuse. The Spike circuits are protected by the fuse.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

I guess you could say it is orange.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Then it's definitely that you have a lack of signal. If when you connect a motor, or whatever your desired application is, and apply a signal, you should see green/red lights. Seems like you're okay.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

I know for our team we have one or two spikes whose "orange" is actually a bit more red than I would really like. Other than that, they work fine. Try using them, they should still work perfectly.

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Spikes are a very random moor controller. The fuse can be intact, the PWM can be plugged into the correct relay slot, and a light may appear, but sometimes it just refuses to work. Our team has a LOT of OLD spikes and a few, that were tested, work so far without any indication. I know this because tested the same spike and compared I with the new VEX spike by changing the Relay PWMs to the new spike and got a signal. So if the problem persists, just keep testing to your heart's content.

Hope his helped and Happy Competitions!

Re: Spike Red Light?
 

Light is usually orange when powered up. We had a red light on one of our spikes when we powered up, pulled out the pwm to find it melted. :eek: Yeah, it smelled bad and was toast. Don't know for sure if the red light was indicating a fault, but I'd put a small amount of money on it.

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>.