Speed controllers won't communicate w/robot controller

[steven114]

I'm pretty sure I saw someone with the same problem a while back on the forums, but after a good half-hour of searching I couldn't find it - so please excuse me if this has already been solved. I hooked up our robot controller to the speed controllers with the kit-provided data cables, and they blink yellow exactly as if they were not plugged in. I can take the same cable and move it to last year's robot controller, and immediately the light goes solid as it should. Why would the new robot controller not provide the poor Victors with the proper signal? Battery and backup battery, of course, plugged in (although I believe the backup battery is not necessary) and to the best of my knowledge everything is plugged in just fine. I even tried reversing the connectors, with no effect. I certainly hope this isn't a hardware problem...

[Mark McLeod]

Probably the most common cause this year has been poorly seated PWM connectors on the victor side. It feels like it's all the way in, but it's probably not. The Victor connection seems to be tighter this year.
Keep wiggling the connector until it only shows about 3/16 of an inch.

[steven114]

Oh, right. Did I forget to mention that it happens to all 6 of them that we've hooked up simultaneously? I just pushed them all in as far as they could go - there's about .175 inches showing. It seems to be seated quite well.

[sirbleedsalot]

Yea I think you were talking about my thread. Um we never really fixed the blinking lights, but the robot runs fine so we are ignoring them. BTW only those on the right side for the drive motors did this.

[steven114]

All of mine are doing it - although I haven't hooked up any motors to confirm this, I would assume that they wouldn't work - which puts me in a much more dire position than you apparently were. How did you work around it - non-functioning speed controllers would seem to kill just about any robot (?)

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by steven114

All of mine are doing it - although I haven't hooked up any motors to confirm this, I would assume that they wouldn't work - which puts me in a much more dire position than you apparently were. How did you work around it - non-functioning speed controllers would seem to kill just about any robot (?)

Steve,
Just on the off chance that the code is corrupt, have you tried to download the default code to the RC and just connect one or two of the default motor controllers? If all of that does not work, there is a chance you have a bad controller. Check with IFI as soon as you can.

[Paul H]

Did you download the master code update? We did this and it seemed to fix our problem.

[steven114]

Yes, I did. I will, however, do so again tomorrow. But I already did so once.

[Alan Anderson]

You say that plugging the other end into last year's RC made things work, so I doubt it's a connection problem at the Victor. But in case it is, we have discovered that this year's Victors are very finicky about exactly what angle the PWM cable pins are inserted at. Half the Victors weren't responding. I bent the pin on the white end just a teeny bit off center and suddenly all was well.

[steven114]

I will try that tomorrow, although the pins are already pretty well bent up and it seems rather odd that all 6 would show the same problem if that was in fact it. But it's something to try...

[sirbleedsalot]

Well we did not work around it. We hooked up the motors to the victors and the motors ran so I don't think our whole victor is broke just the led. because sometimes when we drive the led just shuts off, but everything still works. That was not much help but try hooking up a motor to the victor, and if that does not work then I would start worrying about the RC like the others said.