Re: camera power supply
 

:eek: BE CAREFUL! When we hooked up our camera yesterday, according to the instructions, we got the dreaded "puff of smoke" from the PC board. Any help? How much is a replacement? What did we do wrong?

Re: camera power supply
 

Phil,
That puff was probably your 5v regulator. We had something similar happen, where it started pulling all the current we could give it. Luckily, we had it on a modular power supply, and could vary the current, so we never blew it out, but there was a definite short between +7.2 and GND. We did all sorts of testing, and in the end, something wierd happened and it started working perfectly again.
To test yours, hook 5v (a KNOWN 5V SUPPLY CAPABLE OF REGULATING CURRENT, NOT A BATTERY!) set the current regulator to about 200 milliamps, and hook the leads up to the GND and 5V pins on the regulator. If the camera still works in this setup, it's something to do with the regulator, or maybe something before that. If it doesn't, then a chip or something blew, and you're outta luck.

Good luck!

Sparks

Re: camera power supply
 

This is in response to a previous post about not needing to have the 12V battery connected in order to run the camera off of the pwm power. Well, yesterday our team just plugged the 7.2V battery in and not the 12V. What we measured was that there was no voltage across the pwm. So I guess you do need the 12V battery in addition to the 7.2V battery to power the camera.

Re: camera power supply
 

What you need is for the RC to be running. When it shuts down, it removes power from all outputs, including the PWM power pins. The RC won't start up without a 12 volt supply, and with the 2005 firmware it won't run on backup power alone for more than a few seconds before it shuts down.

Re: camera power supply
 

I found out the same thing.

Re: camera power supply
 

why does First show the ttl adapter chip for the cmucam hooked up to the ttl serial port on the microcontroller when they are both male pins? so what's going on here? what should I hook up to what?

Re: camera power supply
 

Look closely on the TTL chip at hte IC where you plug in the PWM cable. On the sides of the IC there are small holes. You slip that part onto the RC. When I first looks at that my face was like this :yikes: or this :ahh: . So the way it works is that the PWM is connected to the TTL chip like regular, and then u place the chip on its side so it slips onto the TTL port all pretty-like. By the way, when the chip is on that port, it is extremely flimsy and can fall out pretty easily if a robot moves a lot and hits things in a competition. Will FIRST allow us to use electrical tape to tape it down since electrical tape is not allowed to be used as an adhesive?