cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

Hello all,

I'm from team 888 and our cRIO seems to me that it is broken in some way. When attached into our robot, the power light has stopped turning on and the cRio will not do anything. I have redone the cables to the cRio and checked voltage drops over the whole system. Everything seems as though it should work.

After all these tests didn't tell me anything, I took the cRio out of the robot and made an incredibly simple circuit by connecting power to the Power Distribution Board and connecting the 24V out into the cRio. I turned it on and nothing happened. I changed out the connectors to see if they were the problem and tried again. Nothing.

This is my last attempt at finding a solution until I reccomend to my coach that we either send the cRio out to be fixed or to just by a whole new cRio.

Please Help Me!

Thanks,
Morton
Team 888

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

Do you have a picture of your set-up? A picture may help us see something that might cause it to not work, as opposed to a limited description.

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

Attachment 9528

As you can see I broke it down to the barebones set up to see if the power would turn on. If you cannot see the lights: All lights one power board are on and all lights on cRio are off

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

Did you try running a program? Is it possible that the connection to the lights was loose, but the cRIO is still working? Also, I can't see it in the picture, but i'm assuming you wired the positive and negative correctly (from the PD to the cRIO)?

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

While connected to the robot in the same configuration it would not respond to anything even by tether

And yes, red to red, black to black

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

Silly questions, but I have to ask. Are you certain the correct set of terminals are being used on both ends of the +24vdc cable. Is your polarity correct?

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

There's no silly questions on here bilbo, I'm looking for any solution at this point.

But yes I checked the configuration for the power connectors to make sure that wasn't happening.

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

There was a team that had this happen at Brunswick Eruption this Fall.

Theirs was fixed by following the cRIO cleaning instructions.

If the cRIO remains inoperable then I'd suggest contacting the NI Tech help line (middle of the page).
There is an internal fuse that could be blown. Only NI can replace that though.

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

One last thing to check is that you don't have a bunch of debris inside the cRio that might be shorting out the power bus. Try vacuuming out the cRio and check it again.

If you know for certain that you have +24 vdc at the power input to the cRio, as measured with a VOM, then there is a good chance an internal fuse has blown.

Arrgg, Mark beat me to it.

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

Last year after Champs we crated a perfectly functional robot. When it arrived in NJ the cRio was dead as you described. We cleaned it and everything, no luck.

NI's repair service was absolutely fantastic in repairing it quickly and now it works perfectly again (and, in this case, the repair was free). That's one reason why we use their stuff at work.

So, "What Mark Said"

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

Don, may I ask what they fixed?

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

We had the same problem.
Know this:
National Instruments will fix your cRIO for free if you do an RMA. They will return it within two weeks of receiving it.
Your issue is probably dust or a blown fuse, but if you're uncertain, you can ship it down and they will fix it for you.

It's unfortunate this happened right before build season.

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

There is a fuse inside the cRIO. It could have been blown. We had two cRIOs that had their fuses blown last season. We called NI and arranged to have two replacement cRIOs shipped 2nd day to us. After we received them, we shipped the broken ones back to them. Of course they took down our credit card number in case we didn't ship them back. If you want to confirm this is indeed the cause, open up the cRIO by removing the screws on the bottom side of the cRIO and you will find a white surface mounted fuse near the dip switches. Put an ohm meter across it. If it doesn't read zero ohm, it's blown. Caution: disconnect power before you do the ohm check.

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

Morton,
On the off chance that a Crio module has taken a hike, try removing all of them and then repower the Crio. This has been asked earlier but you did not respond. Are you measuring 24 volts at the input connector of the Crio with the Crio connected?

I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to remind everyone that the Crio chassis/enclosure is tied to the negative lead of the battery. If hard mounted to the robot frame, the frame is now connected to the battery. Under FRC rules this is not allowed. When building your robot this season, remember to insulate both the Crio chassis and the camera if you use one.

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

I have checked the voltage drop across the connector to the cRIO and it was 24V.

When I get a chance today I will go through and try your idea of removing all the modules. Thanks Al.

Just to let everyone know. I will probably be sending the cRIO into NI soon so that I will have it working by the time we need it in build season.

Thanks for all of your help

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

We had the same problem. Just call NI and get a RMA number and send it to them. They returned it in less than two weeks repaired free of charge. GREAT SERVICE.

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

Yes, you may.


Oh, you already did. :p

I don't have the details in front of me but they 'applied engineering fix #xxxx" something to do with the power system. A fuse could've been it, not sure.

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

Hmm. "Engineering fix" sounds like they didn't just replace with identical parts but rather upgraded something to address a known problem. Not that that's bad. It actually sounds like a good thing.

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

Morton,
As pointed out earlier, an RMA is needed for returns. The sooner the better as things will heat up after kickoff.

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

Their number is:
(866) 511-6285
from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Central Time.

I got that from going to http://ni.com/first and clicking on the FRC logo.

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

My team had a problem last year with the cRIO getting zapped due to a faulty connection sending 12V through our chassis. It's unlikely that this happened to you, but it is a good reminder to insulate the cRIO.

Re: cRio Power Light Not Turning on and no Activity
 

We had the same issue with one of our spare CRIO's. It in fact was the fuse. This crio was being used on our practice robot. We did not have time to wait for the RMA process, which BTW is very fast, so I decided to repair it myself. I do NOT recommend attempting this yourself as it will most likely void any warranty and is certainly in violation of the rules. Since this unit was only being used on the practice bot it did not matter. After opening the cRIO and observing the blizzard of debris that fell to the floor, I located a small surface mount fuse (1206 apx.) located near the power connector. I do not remember the ref. designator of the fuse but it is F?. Using a multimeter I tested the continuity of the fuse and verified that is was open. I replaced the fuse with a 2 amp slow-blow in that same package. I reassembled the unit this time WITH the optional rubber gasket kit. The cRIO is now working fine.

Once agian I do not recommend doing this but we needed it now.