Victors not working

[jwatson12]

Hi all. We are using default robot code with 2012 Labview image. Jaguars work fine on the kitbot with two motors. When we change to Victors and alter the code in Begin.vi on the Open2Motor control to use Victors, build, deploy and set as startup. We are not able to run the motors. All we did was change the motor type and deploy. We also checked the PWM's to make sure the are seated correctly. This doesnt make sense. PLEASE HELP! What could be happening?

[Mark McLeod]

If you can plug the PWM cable into a jag and the jag light goes solid, then the same must happen with a Victor.
If is not, then the PWM connection to the Victor is the likely culprit (no matter how well you think you seated them).

[PAR_WIG1350]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

If you can plug the PWM cable into a jag and the jag light goes solid, then the same must happen with a Victor.
If is not, then the PWM connection to the Victor is the likely culprit (no matter how well you think you seated them).

Agreed, victors are notorious for having uncooperative connectors.

[DominickC]

It's not even necessary to change the controller type. If you really want to, you could hot-swap the Jag for the IFI Victor.

[jwatson12]

We did hot swap at first but one victor would spin on its own without responding to joystick. The other motor would respond form idle state but only spin in one direction. PWM's were checked out. We think they are seated correctly. What else might this be? This is so strange.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by jwatson12

We did hot swap at first but one victor would spin on its own without responding to joystick. The other motor would respond form idle state but only spin in one direction. PWM's were checked out. We think they are seated correctly. What else might this be? This is so strange.

If a Victor runs by itself, or if it only runs in one direction, it's probably broken. A knowledgeable technician can replace a faulty FET and fix the most common failures.

[jwatson12]

Thanks all for your responses. We were able to get our button assignments and motor drive systems funcitonal via joysitcks; all with Jaguars. We then proceeded to go back through all of our old victors from prior years to see which ones were good. To do this ,we changed our open2motor object in begin.vi to use victors instead of Jaguars. When we testd, no response was realized. No motors moved. we know our code is correct with Jaguars. The question (again) is why no victors using a victor designation?

Next, we changed back to Jaguars on Open2Motor in begin.vi. Out of al five victors tested, NONE, were responsive like the the jaguars. They either turned in one direction, hummmed or turned on their own. We even made sure the pwms were seated correctly and even recalibrated. The only other suggestion I found was to jumper the PWM on the sidecar to change from 5 to 6 volts. I have not done this yet.

Can anyone tell me why victors do not run when assigning victors in the code? I have a hard time believing all my victors are bad. We coded in C last year and had no problems.

Thanks again. Just tryiong to save some money

[EricVanWyk]

Originally Posted by DominickC

It's not even necessary to change the controller type. If you really want to, you could hot-swap the Jag for the IFI Victor.

Incorrect. They both use similar enough PWM signalling that it may appear to work, but they are scaled differently.

If you give a factory default Jaguar a signal intended for a Victor, it will never output full power - What Victor thinks is full forward, Jaguar thinks is medium forward.

If you give a factory default Victor a signal intended for a Jaguar, it will quickly slam to full power for signals that were meant to be medium power.

[jwatson12]

Thank you. We never tried using Jaguars with Victor setting. But, this explains why the victors might be so sporadic with Jaguar setting. However, still not getting activity with Victors when assigning Victor. What could this be? Is there another alternative? I'm getting ready to call NI directly.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by jwatson12

However, still not getting activity with Victors when assigning Victor.

Correctly plugging a PWM cable into a Victor is maddeningly difficult to do, and nearly impossible to tell when you've failed without trying to control it. It sometimes seems to me that consistently getting it right takes years of experience and practice.

[jwatson12]

PWM not the issue. Called NI support, they also suggested PWM and to re-calibrate the victors. They also said they tested everything against the cRio. Question now is - which crio? We have the older five bay and recently had it fixed. Could be the crio. But Jaguars work just fine!