Out team had the control system on the bench, doing some tests. We had five motor controllers hooked up (our sixth one was removed) and two were attached to motors. Since it was not entirely set up (no analog breakouts or other important pieces plugged int), we didn't have a battery voltage readout on the DS. When I went to program it, only one of the two (small) motors would run.
The other simply wouldn't run. We switched the motors around, used different PWM outputs and speed controllers, but still couldn't get the motors to run. A while later, the DS lost communication with the cRio.
We noticed all the lights flickering on the various components (partially synchronized, partially chaotic). After shutting it off, we took a multimeter to our battery terminals (still connected to the breaker), and thought something was wrong with our reading. We were only getting a little over 3 volts.
When we disconnected it and tested the battery alone, we also got a little over 3 volts. After getting a new multimeter (neither of us could believe it would even power on with 3 volts), we tested again. It was a little over 3 volts. We replaced the battery with one right off the charger (we tested it and it had over 12 volts) and the system worked fine.
We realized noone had replaced the battery in several days of use. Moral of the story: next time we should check the battery voltage.
