5th motor woes...

[toastnbacon]

This year, I convinced my team to let some of our electrical equipment be part of our spare parts so I could finish a last little bit of programming. I ran into a fairly large problem though, our current design needs five motors running: two for the drive train (CIM), one for a ball intake system (Window Motor), one for a rubber band elevator system (CIM), and one more to use for an arm (Window Motor). When I have only the first four, everything works as expected, but when I add the arm, everything falls apart, complete with flashing yellow lights on the speed controllers. I don't do anything with that motor, I simply open the reference in begin and close it in finish, but somehow opening the reference causes this problem. I've tried other PWM inputs and different names of the reference (Arm, Pole, Bar, even Blag!!) and keep getting the same result, but if I simply delete it, everything is fine. Any ideas on the problem or ideas for a solution?

I am programming using Labview, I didn't know if this was a problem specific to it or not, so I decided to post this in programming. I don't know anything about how other languages work, so my apologies if it doesn't make any sense outside of labview.

[RufflesRidge]

Your Digital Sidecar needs to be powered with 12V from a circuit on the Power Distribution Board with a 20A Breaker. The BAT LED on the Digital Sidecar should be brightly lit.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Just to clarify, you're saying you have the 5th motor electrically plugged in and wired in at all times. With the 5th motor wired in, your code works if you don't open a reference to it, and everything stops working when you do open a reference. So the only difference is you changing the code, nothing electrical. Is that right?

Also, what are your diagnostic light on the dashboard doing when the robot doesn't work? Do you have comms? Robot Code? Are you getting a watchdog error?

Posting your code would also be helpful for trouble shooting.

[the programmer]

Can you post a copy of your program and a picture of your control board?

[AlexD744]

Originally Posted by RufflesRidge

Your Digital Sidecar needs to be powered with 12V from a circuit on the Power Distribution Board with a 20A Breaker. The BAT LED on the Digital Sidecar should be brightly lit.

this. I have heard reports that the control cables going to PWM's have enough power coming from the cRio to power 4 speed controllers, but if you add a 5th they do not have enough juice. Therefore, you need to make sure that you are powering you sidecar as described above. There were connectors for the sidecar provided in the KoP. (I believe they're called WAGO connectors?)

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by AlexD744

I believe they're called WAGO connectors?

That's the correct term.

[purduephotog]

Was the problem -solved?