Motor Controller Problems

[Team 4008]

Hello, Everyone. We are trying to test basic robot programming using Java, but have gotten stuck. After several days of following FRC instructions, we have reached the following block. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

- The motor controllers have flashing orange lights, indicating no PWM signal.
- We have tried both Jaguar's and Victor 888's with the same result.
- The cRIO has been re-imaged to 2014 java version.
- We have downloaded the simpleRobotTemplate project to the cRIO using NetBeans IDE.
- The motor controllers are connected to the PWM slots 1 & 2 of the digital sidecar.
- Communication is good between the driver station and cRIO.
- Status lights on the digital sidecar and cRIO are all green and appear to be working correctly.

[jee7s]

Five quick things to check:

1. Are your three pin cables inserted in the proper orientation? If not, then you are grounding the PWM pin on the speed controller = no signal.

2. Is your 37 pin cable between the cRIO module and the DSC securely plugged in?

3. Are you properly supplying power to the DSC?

4. What is your RSL output looking like?

5. (I think the answer is yes, but...)Are you enabling your robot at the driver station?

[Team 4008]

Our problem is now solved. Thank you very much dee7s for your recommendations.

The tip to check the robot signal light from the DSC got us on the right track. The light would function when plugged directly to 12v power, but would not function when plugged into the sidecar. The DSC did however have all of its status lights on and was receiving power correctly.

It was discovered that our 9403 digital IO module was defective. After swapping a new module into our cRIO, the RSL LED began to blink and the PWM signals became active. I can't believe our 9403 module went bad, but it's true. We now have working motors with a joystick!