Help at the midnight hour (electrical)
 

My team is having some major problems with some electrical components.

Our biggest problem is we have gone through 5 spikes for the compressor and none of them work. Even weirder they all don't work in different ways. All these spikes where either out of the box or lightly used once our twice (they worked before). The first spike actually worked for a time but then got stuck in the open position and won't switch. The second spike wouldn't even light up. The third spike had lose connectors and was stuck in one position. The fourth spike had ADD and would randomly switch even when the PWM cable and the Compressor power cables where disconnected, basically it only had power connected to it. Then the fifth spike again was stuck in one position but it was in the off position. Does my team have the worst luck in the world and just so happened to get 5 bad spikes, or is there something that could be fundamentally wrong with our electronics.????????????? I am not the best person to tell all about the exact electrical set up but as far as i know we followed the rule book exactly for all the parts. We got the recommended breaker on the power distribution board, the right gauge wire, the PWM cables are done right, etc... However if something that could be wrong in those regards could cause these problems please say so.

The problem with our electronics is we have a "lazy Jaguar" the jag in question has worked properly before but suddenly it isn't. According to the code the voltage going out of the Jag is the same as the rest of the wheels. However when we measure that voltage it is about 1/3 less than the rest of the jags. We haven't replaced it yet but We are worried that it might be something beyond the Jag because as i said earlier it worked fine for a time then this happened.

Re: Help at the midnight hour (electrical)
 

In addition to the breaker on the power board, you need to remove the yellow fuse, and install a 20A black breaker into the spike.

Also...how are you connecting the spike? Did you connect the V+ V- side to the power board, and the M+ M- side to the compressor?

Re: Help at the midnight hour (electrical)
 

Hey! Sounds similar to a few problems we've been having. I'd say definitely check if the PWM wire is good, and definitely check the DSC to see if there are possibly any metal shavings or conductive stuff inside it. Take it apart and blow it out if you have to. We've done that a few times.
Best of luck! :)

Re: Help at the midnight hour (electrical)
 

Interesting..... 6 years and never a bad spike, and we had the one on our compressor fail yesterday mid-practice......

Light would not go green, even though it was getting signal, and I could feel the relay click. We changed it out with an old one. Opened it up and smelled 'smoke' but did not see any charred components.

We had changed the 20 amp fuse with a breaker.

Re: Help at the midnight hour (electrical)
 

All,

You definitely need to change the 20A fuse on the Spike feeding the compressor with a 20A circuit breaker because the inrush current when starting the compressor is too much for the fuse.

This is allowed by <R60> part F.

Regards,

Mike

Re: Help at the midnight hour (electrical)
 

For the "Lazy Jaguar" you might want to run the calibration routine and see if that fixes this problem.

Page 2/13 for the MDL-BDC Gray/MDL-BDC24 Black respectively of the "Getting Started" pdfs located here: http://www.luminarymicro.com/jaguar.

Re: Help at the midnight hour (electrical)
 

Mat,
I can believe one Spike and maybe really bad luck could get two but not five. What you describe sounds like a PWM cable issue. Remember that the Spike is not a PWM device. It is getting straight command signals using a PWM cable as a standard interface.
A common failure mode for Spikes is caused by rough handling. Pulling on the input and output power connections causes the 1/4" male "push on" to pull out of the circuit board. Test the tabs by wiggling with your finger. If they move around they have been pulled out of the circuit board. In most cases, a person who is good with a soldering iron can simply push them back into the board and resolder. Moral of the story is don't wiggle the push on terminals while you are trying to insert or remove them from the Spike.

Re: Help at the midnight hour (electrical)
 

Thanks all we will do all the things you mentioned tonight