Jaguars are blinking yellow

[ColonelThrtyTwo]

Thanks for the feedback.

I've tried moving the Jag from channel one to channel five, with no luck. I've also replaced the Jag with a Victor and the digital sidecar with a brand new one as well as the one we used on our last years robot, with no results. The voltage between the power and ground pins was zero in all of our tests. I don't have a PWM generator or a serial cable.

Another thing: our driver station says that the battery voltage is zero volts. Don't know if that has anything to do with it or not. Don't have a cable to our analog breakout yet.

[slijin]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

Are you sure about this? I think you will only have a voltage on the center pin if you install the jumper on the digital sidecar.

I had always been under the impression that the jumper served some other purpose, but I distinctly recall measuring voltage when troubleshooting outputs my freshman year, though I could be mistaken. I'll be sure to confirm when I go into the lab tomorrow.

[slijin]

Originally Posted by ColonelThrtyTwo

Thanks for the feedback.

I've tried moving the Jag from channel one to channel five, with no luck. I've also replaced the Jag with a Victor and the digital sidecar with a brand new one as well as the one we used on our last years robot, with no results. The voltage between the power and ground pins was zero in all of our tests. I don't have a PWM generator or a serial cable.

Another thing: our driver station says that the battery voltage is zero volts. Don't know if that has anything to do with it or not. Don't have a cable to our analog breakout yet.

If the system on last year's robot is fully functional, prop it up on bricks, switch one of the motor controllers out for the Jag in question, and try to run it. If this fails, then it's almost definitely the Jag.

You don't need a serial cable to tether to the Jaguar, just a computer with a serial port (or a USB-to-serial converter). The 1st item on the 10th page (listed as the DB9/RJ12 converter, although I believe assembly is required) of the KoP checklist and a cable to connect to the Jag is all you need. Download the BDC-COMM interface from TI to do so.

[Matt5893]

We had this same issue, and I don't know if someone on the thread already said this, but make sure the inputs for the cRIO are in the correct slots

slot 1: analog

slot 2: digital

slot 3: solenoid

Once put it in slot 2 the jaguars were responding. Hope this helps!

[Alan Anderson]

Two silly questions, but I haven't seen them answered yet:

1) Do you have power to the Digital Sidecar? Make sure the BATT, +5V, and +6V LEDs are all lit.

2) Have you enabled the robot from the Driver Station as suggested in the very first response? Only after the robot has been enabled will the Jaguars be receiving a PWM signal and stop their flashing.

Not-so-silly question: What is the Robot Signal Light doing? Either the big amber light plugged in to the RSL pins on the Digital Sidecar, or the little green LED next to those pins. If it's off, there's a wiring issue, most likely either power or cabling to the cRIO DIO module. If it's blinking quickly, the robot has not established communication with the Driver Station. If it's blinking slowly, the robot is communicating but disabled. When the robot is enabled, it will be on steady with a very brief flicker off every second or two.

[ColonelThrtyTwo]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

1) Do you have power to the Digital Sidecar? Make sure the BATT, +5V, and +6V LEDs are all lit.

Yes.

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

2) Have you enabled the robot from the Driver Station as suggested in the very first response? Only after the robot has been enabled will the Jaguars be receiving a PWM signal and stop their flashing.

Yes.

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Not-so-silly question: What is the Robot Signal Light doing? Either the big amber light plugged in to the RSL pins on the Digital Sidecar, or the little green LED next to those pins. If it's off, there's a wiring issue, most likely either power or cabling to the cRIO DIO module. If it's blinking quickly, the robot has not established communication with the Driver Station. If it's blinking slowly, the robot is communicating but disabled. When the robot is enabled, it will be on steady with a very brief flicker off every second or two.

It is acting normally, in that it is slowly flashing when disabled and mostly on when enabled.

Originally Posted by Matt5893

We had this same issue, and I don't know if someone on the thread already said this, but make sure the inputs for the cRIO are in the correct slots

slot 1: analog

slot 2: digital

slot 3: solenoid

Once put it in slot 2 the jaguars were responding. Hope this helps!

Yea, it's in slot 2. The imaging tool bugged us about this, so we re-ordered the modules and all of them should be in the correct positions.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by ColonelThrtyTwo

Here's my test code, in Java:

    Jaguar jag = new Jaguar(2,1); // Module 2, channel 1

...I can't think of anything else we could be doing wrong...

And now I see it. This year, the module numbers don't represent which slot the module is installed in. The first analog module is #1, and the first digital module is #1, and the first solenoid module is #1. You're telling the code to control something on the second digital module, which is probably not what you want it to do.

[Roceres]

I am having a similar issue, but I am using Labview - there's a yellow light on Jaguar and putting a meter on the signal pin there seems to be no pwm signal. To test the motors and the Jaguar I ran one of the FRC examples provided in the help menu. It looks like everything is connected properly; I have also fixed my DB37 cable. I have not connected the Robot Signal light and not sure how that plays a role.

To eliminate the Jaguar as an issue, we connected up a simple servo to the side-car and ran the simple Labview Servo example - we got the same results. It seems we are getting no PWM signal from the digital side car.

[DavidGitz]

Originally Posted by Roceres

...

Besides following all the troubleshooting steps in this thread, make sure that in LabView you are referencing the Digital Module #1. Module != Slot.

The Robot Signal Light (or RSL) is a useful tool for troubleshooting. As Alan stated earlier, check to make sure the RSL itself (when installed) or the LED's on the Digital SideCar are blinking correctly as referenced in his comment.

[Roceres]

I will look at the RSL this weekend when our team meets. This is the Blink Pattern I found from a post from last year. Is this correct?

* Fast Blink = cRIO not communicating with Driver Station
* Slow Blink = disabled
* Short on/long-off Blink = either low battery or no code & disabled
* Long on/short off blink = Teleop mode
* Solid on = Autonomous mode

In addition, is it necessary to have the driver station operating? We haven't installed it yet and thought it was unnecessary if we weren't running the entire robot, just the simple servo or motor examples provided. If we need the driver station, are the disable/enable buttons on the driver station display disabling the PWMs somehow through the digital sidecar? That could explain our problem.

[ColonelThrtyTwo]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

And now I see it. This year, the module numbers don't represent which slot the module is installed in. The first analog module is #1, and the first digital module is #1, and the first solenoid module is #1. You're telling the code to control something on the second digital module, which is probably not what you want it to do.

Ah thanks for that, this solved it.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Roceres

In addition, is it necessary to have the driver station operating? We haven't installed it yet and thought it was unnecessary if we weren't running the entire robot, just the simple servo or motor examples provided. If we need the driver station, are the disable/enable buttons on the driver station display disabling the PWMs somehow through the digital sidecar? That could explain our problem.

Yes it is necessary to use the driver station and enable. All outputs are disabled unless the driver station is communicating with the robot and enabled.