Re: Digital Sidecar Ports are dropping out.
 

Interesting, we think we had a similar problem during our practice rounds where the motor would only run in one direction. As a rookie team we just used one DSC running two Jags controlling CIMs and two servos. We thought we had a terminal crimp problem, but after redoing 5-6 terminals we still had the problem. We were about to change out the DSC when I noticed a 1/4 inch metal shaving tangled in a pin area. Once we removed the shaving the motors worked. Makes me thing that we should mount the boards upside down to prevent the metal shavings falling into the components. I guess then all we have to worry is the connectors from falling out. I had seen a few teams mount their electronics vertically. Just a thought for next year.

Re: Digital Sidecar Ports are dropping out.
 

we had the relay ports on our first digital sidecard not work at then at our regional we had on of the digit inpputs go bad on our second digital sidecard.

Re: Digital Sidecar Ports are dropping out.
 

Consider it done, please check your PMs.

Re: Digital Sidecar Ports are dropping out.
 

We had a DS die on us, +5v led on, no VBATT led, no 6V led on.. (odd combination as VBATT is 12v and that's what drives the +5v and +6v switchers)

Opened up the unit and Q1, the reverse voltage FET was blown.. Well its was in many pieces... Removed it, the +6v switcher was again working and the VBATT led was back on... Ordered an new FET from Digikey and all is well...

Whats odd here is this unit was in our TEST robot, and the hardware configuration had not change in weeks, remove the bad unit, replaced it with a new unit and we were back in business... do not understand the root cause of the failure... it might just be a bad part!!

tom lafleur
mentor team 812
the Preuss school at UCSD

Re: Digital Sidecar Ports are dropping out.
 

Team 1836 also had a problem with the DSC.

During a quick test between matches it suddenly stopped working (or at least, it was still getting power and the lights were on but the four victors we had plugged into it stopped responding). We determined that it was the probably the DSC and received a temporary replacement, and used that for the remainder of the event. We had to give it back of course so now we'll have to do that again in Atlanta...

Sorry I don't have any more details, as we were pressed for time...Is there any way somebody could help us out in obtaining a permanent replacement or fixing it, if it can be fixed? We'd like to have one to use during the off-season...