Can't get pneumatics solenoids to work

[Fej]

Hey guys.

So, my team and I have been trying to get some solenoids working so that we can toggle a couple of pistons on and off. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to get the solenoids to work properly.

We're using, as of right now, one 12v double solenoid, P/N SY3240-5L0U. We have tried several units. We have also tried a single solenoid, P/N SY3140-5FU. They were/are connected to a block P/N SY3000-27-1.

We have gotten none of these to work. The code is working fine. The lights on the cRIO light up, and we can hear the solenoids clicking inside the housings. But the air still takes the same path, no matter what screwholes we put the tubes in nor what pressure we use.

We tested the electrical connections, and the solenoids are getting a little over 12v.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what the problem could be?

Thanks!

[MetalJacket]

Hi, welcome to chiefdelphi!
A few questions/suggestions that might help ...
- You said that you could hear the solenoids clicking, could you see the little red lights on top toggling on and off?
- Just in case it is code, try firing the solenoids manually by pressing in the little blue buttons on top using a pen or something similar.
- Could you post a picture of the setup so we can see if some of the tubing is not going where it should be or something along those lines?
- Probably a dumb question but is any air at all going to the cylinder? Is it just locked in one position when the system is charged or does it move freely?

Jesse

[kevin.li.rit]

Isn't the SY3240-5L0U and SY3140-5FU a 24V solenoid?

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Fej

But the air still takes the same path, no matter what screwholes we put the tubes in nor what pressure we use.

You definitely need to use the correct screw holes to connect things up, or it won't work.

There's a side with 3 holes, and a side with 2 holes. The 2 holes go to the cylinder's two ports. The middle hole on the 3-hole side is the air input. Leave the other 2 ports open (not plugged).

Use at least 30 PSI input.

[Bill_B]

I think Kevin has a good point. Is your solenoid breakout board's Wago connector wired correctly to a 24v spot on the power distribution board? Make sure the polarity is correct.

There is one other thing that is tricky. I'm not sure how the manual override for the SMC valves works. Your part number did not include the code that specifies what type there is. so maybe your valves don't have the override. But if they do I think it is a blue button sometimes that has a small slot in it. If you push it when the air pressure is available, the valve will be activated. The Festo equivalents allow a quarter turn of that slotted button which disables the solenoid completely. If it is turned on the Festo rig, the valve will not respond to electrical signals on either side.

[jfitz0807]

This has been a big help. We have been having a similar problem. We are using the Festo double solenoid. We had no idea about the blue buttons.

Our problem turned out to be that we had 12V to our solenoid breakout, but the solenoids needed 24V. The Festo VUVG-L10-B52-T-M7-5P3 is a 12V solenoid per the AndyMark website. We happened to have VUVG-L10-B52-T-M7-1P3. Note the "1P3". This is a 24V solenoid. Once we connected 24V to our solenoid breakout, it worked.

Note also that the "M7" denotes the size of the air holes. We also have a bunch of "M5"s which have a smaller opening.

[Tem1514 Mentor]

Just a little note on the manual blue buttons is that they may enabled to always on if you turn the slot 90 degrees. If happen to miss the fact that the solenoid has been locked on it make for a real bad day of troubleshooting.

[InsanesTheName]

Hello everyone! I am also on Fej's team.

After some more work this morning, I figured out that it was the lack of pressure that was causing the solenoids to not work properly. While the air canister had plenty of pressure, there was nothing connected to the output tube in the solenoid; therefore, the solenoid itself wasn't actually pressurized at all. As soon as we connected a piston to the output tube, the solenoids worked perfectly since they were now pressurized enough.

Thanks for all the responses! Hopefully this can help anyone else having this same issue not make the same silly mistakes we did.