Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

I know you're supposed to control solenoids with spikes, unfortunately, we've ran out. We have a fork load of victors, though. I thought that if I simply provided full power forward, reverse, or no power for off, it might work. Was hoping somebody knew something about this.

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

What exactly are you using all of your spikes for?

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

I wouldn't recommend it. From what I gather, the speed controllers output 12V pulses, not variable voltage from 0-12. This is due to the pwm nature of the signal. I don't have an oscilliscope to test this with, but using my multimeter on both AC and DC voltage it seems like this is correct.

And even at full power I don't think its a steady pulse of 12V, but it might be. Once again I don't have an oscilliscope to test it with.

By the way I don't know the ruling on this, so it could be illegal too.

Did you run out of spikes or relay ports? If you ran out of spikes you can order more. If you ran out of relay outputs you can just use digital I/O pins for the FWD / REV pins on each additional spike.

[Edit]Also, did you know that you can wire 2 solenoids to each relay? That means 1 double solenoid or 2 single solenoids per relay. Basically the M+ and M- pins on the relays are independent of each other. FWD controls M+ and REV controls M-.

If FWD is high (5V), M+ is high (12V).
If FWD is low (0V), M+ is low (0V).
If REV is high (5V), M- is high (12V).
If REV is low (0V), M- is low (0V).

Just wire all the solenoid grounds to the main battery ground, and all the power wires to a different M+ or M- pin. It helps not to think of them as just FWD and REV but as independent pins, just together on one relay.

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

Yeah, I actually ran out of spikes. We're developing a second, practice bot and we used up most of our spikes on the competition bot. Thanks for your help, I'm kind of afraid to test it out. It wouldn't be nice to lose a solenoid with experiments. I think I'll try and find a different route. We might be able to hook up multiple solenoids to the same spike. I could probably just read the input from the switches and change the same relay. Once again, thx.

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

I'm sure there would be dozens of teams willing to trade/sell/give you extra spikes.

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

We are going to ask some of our neigboring teams for some spare spikes. Actually, my team might have already, didn't make the tuesday meeting. I had a psych test that night.

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

By the way, the information about using 2 solenoids per relay is in the documentation for using the spike so it's not something that could ruin your spike.

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

after #180 and below #75 it DOES work ( lol i got realy board with an 883 and a relay after school one day ) i dont know if its agenst the rules but it works. however i would advise you buy/trade for more spikes and use them. because its what first wants you to do, and there not stupid.

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

yes it does work. on our OCCRA robt, we had to do that and we had no problems at all. at OCCRA, the judges said nothing... but FIRST, i dunno...

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

The spikes are meant to have a steady state control voltage at the input to produce a steady state output. The solenoids are designed for a steady state input as well. By feeding them a PWM signal, they will attempt to follow the input. Mechanical marvels that they are, that varying signal may just destroy them. Either by heat generated in the movement or just the rapid banging of the parts as they try to follow the input signal. Even if they were to follow the input signal without damage, you wouldn't want to modulate your air to a piston by using this method. It would be inefficient. Although there is no specific instructions in the robot electrical manual, it is certainly implied that Spikes only are the driving device for air solenoids. Sorry.

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

Dumb question... if you wired 2 single solenoids to one spike, you can't actuate both single solenoids at the same time can you? i.e. run the Spike in both FWD and REV at the same time? I just assumed this wasn't possible... I'd be happy to be embarrased and wrong though... that way I can get rid of half my Spikes =)

-Shawn...

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

You can wire two singles or both side of the double or a combination of things to want activated together.

Single solenoid are either on or off so you wire it so one way the one solenoid is one the other the other is one. This is assuming the situation when you want the other off when the one is on.

For doubles you pulse one side and then activate the other side to switch. So if you wire the leads from both sides to one spike to actuate either way.
Finally if you want to activate both solenoid together I believe you can wire then together to one solenoid. It would work. Both in FWD. You couldn't power both FWD and REV together as far as I know but the other would work. And I think its legal but not certain. This would only be for something you wanted to switch at the same time.

It is better to use two spike and make a button that activates both of them with programming though.

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

Ok, heres what I think your looking for.

If you wire 2 solenoids to one spike, they will always change together.

So if solenoid A is on, only when B is off, but never on at the same time

or----

A is on only when B is on, but never one with out the other


make sence?

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

If you're in a position where you're wiring multiple solenoid valves to the same relays, you might see if you can do away with the other solenoid valves alltogether. Connecting multiple actuators to the same solenoid valve is a simple enough operation. Maybe this isn't applicable to your situation, but I just thought I'd throw it out there.

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

Too much false information in this thread!

Yes, you can control the M+ and M- completely independently of each other! Like I said in my previous post, it's best not to think of the pins as FWD and REV, just 2 different data pins that control 2 different relays (conveniently packaged on the same spike).

The only problem I can see is if you blow a fuse (either on the spike or on the fuse panel) then you lose control of 2 solenoids. The only way that would happen with a solenoid is if you accidentally shorted the wires together though.

Once again, I recommend reading the manual. They tell you exactly how to do this in there.

http://www.innovationfirst.com/FIRST...sersManual.pdf

(Scroll down to "One or Two Solenoid Wiring")

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

You can also run the compressor off of a victor. This was actually within the rules last year but they changed it this year. Because it was in last years rules, I'm assuming that it has no adverse affects.

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

This is true that you can control them independently, but you CAN NOT turn them on at the same time. This is what I was getting at on my last post.

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

As far as I know, you're wrong. You can have 12V on both outputs at the same time.

<edit>
IFI thinks you're wrong, too. See the SPIKE manual, page 2.
</edit>

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

Please read the manual and/or test it yourself. I have done both and you can turn them both on at once.

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

Yea this is correcct. I have played with them and a scope a few times. If its full fwd or full rev, its pretty close to 100% duty cycle though so it won't matter. even if it isn;t exactly 100%, the victors operate at some really high frequency i don't remember right now, and the solenoids are purely electromechanical devices, except for one of them that had some LEDs, and those will still work fine too. To sum it up, it will definately work, but might not be FIRST legal.


Oh and btw. It is true that the M+ and M- on the solenoids are indepepdent, and can be turned on at the same time. If you don't believe us, test it for yourself.

Re: Controlling Solenoids With Victors
 

Thanks Jay!

This is exactly what I needed to know. I'm relieved that I'm wrong, and now I can scrap half of our Spikes if needed. I wonder how many teams there are who have too many Spikes controlling solenoids because they aren't aware that FWD/M+ and REV/M- can be controlled completely independantly of each other. That both can be "turned on" to +12V simultaneously (and the LED on the Spike turns off to let you know what's going on).

-Shawn...