Go to Post I think another really awsome thing about FIRST can be summed up by what Dan, the Wildstang operator, said when they won nats: "I built that!" I mean, the feeling of satisfaction you get knowing that something you created can perform such unbelievable tasks is amazing. - Jupee [more]
Home
Go Back   Chief Delphi > Technical > Electrical
CD-Media   CD-Spy  
portal register members calendar search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read FAQ rules

 
Closed Thread
Thread Tools Rating: Thread Rating: 2 votes, 5.00 average. Display Modes
  #1   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 28-01-2014, 18:13
afclsn afclsn is offline
Adam Claussen
AKA: Adam Claussen
FRC #4474 (Silver Circuit)
Team Role: Mechanical
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Rookie Year: 2013
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 24
afclsn is an unknown quantity at this point
Half Sidecar PWM Ports Working

This is team 4474, posting during our second FRC season. It seems that the first 4 PWM ports in our sidecar don't respond correctly. Ports 1 and 2 output "forward" to out motor controllers while ports 3 and 4 output "reverse" at all times. Ports 5 through 10 work just fine. We've tried two different sidecars, several different serial cables, and two different cRIOs with the exact same results. The battery voltage was near full when we tested it as well. Help would be greatly appreciated!
  #2   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 28-01-2014, 18:23
Nirvash's Avatar
Nirvash Nirvash is offline
Registered User
AKA: Bryan
FRC #4676
Team Role: Programmer
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Rookie Year: 2011
Location: Orland Park, IL
Posts: 221
Nirvash has a spectacular aura aboutNirvash has a spectacular aura about
Is the sidecar wired to and recieving 12volts from the PDB and are all three voltage lights on it fully illuminated with the DB37 cable disconnected? ( Cable that attaches to the crio)
__________________
Team 3488 - Electrical Lead/Programming Lead 2011-2013
Team 4676 - Electrical/Programming Mentor 2013-Present
  #3   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 28-01-2014, 18:28
kevin.li.rit's Avatar
kevin.li.rit kevin.li.rit is offline
Imaginary Friend
AKA: Kevin Li
FRC #0596 (SciClones)
Team Role: Student
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Rookie Year: 2001
Location: Hopkinton, Massachusetts
Posts: 936
kevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to kevin.li.rit
Re: Half Sidecar PWM Ports Working

Quote:
Originally Posted by afclsn View Post
This is team 4474, posting during our second FRC season. It seems that the first 4 PWM ports in our sidecar don't respond correctly. Ports 1 and 2 output "forward" to out motor controllers while ports 3 and 4 output "reverse" at all times. Ports 5 through 10 work just fine. We've tried two different sidecars, several different serial cables, and two different cRIOs with the exact same results. The battery voltage was near full when we tested it as well. Help would be greatly appreciated!
Just to help us help you here are some basic questions.

How are you determining that they are outputting reverse/forward all the time?
How are your motors wired?
How did you determine ports 5-10 are working properly?
What speed controllers are you using and are they wired properly?
__________________
Kevin Li

596 - Sciclones
1405 - Finney Falcons
2262 - Holliston Panthers
  #4   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 28-01-2014, 19:45
Alan Anderson's Avatar
Alan Anderson Alan Anderson is offline
Software Architect
FRC #0045 (TechnoKats)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Rookie Year: 2004
Location: Kokomo, Indiana
Posts: 9,113
Alan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond repute
Re: Half Sidecar PWM Ports Working

Quote:
Originally Posted by afclsn View Post
...the first 4 PWM ports in our sidecar don't respond correctly. Ports 1 and 2 output "forward" to out motor controllers while ports 3 and 4 output "reverse" at all times.
I am unable to imagine a failure that can cause this symptom. I suspect something else is going on. My first guess is that your motor controllers are miswired with the motor terminals connected to power and the power terminals connected to the motor.

Quote:
Ports 5 through 10 work just fine. We've tried two different sidecars, several different serial cables, and two different cRIOs with the exact same results. The battery voltage was near full when we tested it as well. Help would be greatly appreciated!
What do you mean by "serial cables"?
  #5   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 28-01-2014, 23:39
afclsn afclsn is offline
Adam Claussen
AKA: Adam Claussen
FRC #4474 (Silver Circuit)
Team Role: Mechanical
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Rookie Year: 2013
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 24
afclsn is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: Half Sidecar PWM Ports Working

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nirvash View Post
Is the sidecar wired to and recieving 12volts from the PDB and are all three voltage lights on it fully illuminated with the DB37 cable disconnected? ( Cable that attaches to the crio)
To be honest, we haven't checked this( we hind of forgot about this) but we kind of assumed that this what the issue, since we ran four motor controllers for like 1/2 hour on our drinetrain (mecanums) with this issue, but using the ports that were working.

Thanks for reminding us of this, we will be sure to check it tomorrow since our meeting is now over. Thank you! We will let you how how it goes.
  #6   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 29-01-2014, 00:01
afclsn afclsn is offline
Adam Claussen
AKA: Adam Claussen
FRC #4474 (Silver Circuit)
Team Role: Mechanical
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Rookie Year: 2013
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 24
afclsn is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: Half Sidecar PWM Ports Working

Quote:
Originally Posted by kevin.li.rit View Post
Just to help us help you here are some basic questions.

How are you determining that they are outputting reverse/forward all the time?
How are your motors wired?
How did you determine ports 5-10 are working properly?
What speed controllers are you using and are they wired properly?
We determined that they are outputting forward/ reverse by attaching a cim through a victor and then trying the pwm in each port (disabling the bot and changing the code to account for each new port) when in ports 1&2 spin one direction with no driver controls, and there is a solid green light on the victor. Ports 3&4 spin the other way and display a solid red light, and the rest work as expected with driver controls(we were able to successfully run our mecanum drivetrain in the working ports) The morons are wired to the victors following the wiring diagram, and they work in ports 5-10 (which was determined by by using them to control our robot which behaved as expected) and since everything worked as expected and we followed the wiring diagrams I am pretty sure everything is wired correctly. Any thoughts? Thanks for the help.

Last edited by afclsn : 29-01-2014 at 10:12. Reason: Typing error
  #7   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 29-01-2014, 00:05
kevin.li.rit's Avatar
kevin.li.rit kevin.li.rit is offline
Imaginary Friend
AKA: Kevin Li
FRC #0596 (SciClones)
Team Role: Student
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Rookie Year: 2001
Location: Hopkinton, Massachusetts
Posts: 936
kevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to kevin.li.rit
Re: Half Sidecar PWM Ports Working

As previously stated I would check to see if the 12 volts is going into the sidecar.
__________________
Kevin Li

596 - Sciclones
1405 - Finney Falcons
2262 - Holliston Panthers
  #8   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 29-01-2014, 00:07
afclsn afclsn is offline
Adam Claussen
AKA: Adam Claussen
FRC #4474 (Silver Circuit)
Team Role: Mechanical
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Rookie Year: 2013
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 24
afclsn is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: Half Sidecar PWM Ports Working

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Anderson View Post
I am unable to imagine a failure that can cause this symptom. I suspect something else is going on. My first guess is that your motor controllers are miswired with the motor terminals connected to power and the power terminals connected to the motor.



What do you mean by "serial cables"?
First, as I described in my other replies, the we followed the wiring diagrams, and successfully used them to drive our drivetrain around for about 30 minutes.

Second, by "serial cable" I meant the db37 cable used to connect the digital sidecar to the digital io module in the crio. Sorry I used wrong name.

Any other ideas?

Thanks.

Last edited by afclsn : 29-01-2014 at 00:08. Reason: Typing error
  #9   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 29-01-2014, 00:09
afclsn afclsn is offline
Adam Claussen
AKA: Adam Claussen
FRC #4474 (Silver Circuit)
Team Role: Mechanical
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Rookie Year: 2013
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 24
afclsn is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: Half Sidecar PWM Ports Working

Quote:
Originally Posted by kevin.li.rit View Post
As previously stated I would check to see if the 12 volts is going into the sidecar.
We will definitely check this tomorrow, as this is a new assembly of the electronics and it very well could be the issue, I just didn't think to check it.
  #10   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 29-01-2014, 07:34
Unsung FIRST Hero
Al Skierkiewicz Al Skierkiewicz is offline
Broadcast Eng/Chief Robot Inspector
AKA: Big Al WFFA 2005
FRC #0111 (WildStang)
Team Role: Engineer
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Rookie Year: 1996
Location: Wheeling, IL
Posts: 10,798
Al Skierkiewicz has a reputation beyond reputeAl Skierkiewicz has a reputation beyond reputeAl Skierkiewicz has a reputation beyond reputeAl Skierkiewicz has a reputation beyond reputeAl Skierkiewicz has a reputation beyond reputeAl Skierkiewicz has a reputation beyond reputeAl Skierkiewicz has a reputation beyond reputeAl Skierkiewicz has a reputation beyond reputeAl Skierkiewicz has a reputation beyond reputeAl Skierkiewicz has a reputation beyond reputeAl Skierkiewicz has a reputation beyond repute
Re: Half Sidecar PWM Ports Working

We had a similar failure but do not expect this to be your exact issue. We started to lose PWM outputs one after another until half the board had no output. We replaced the DSC and checked the bad one only to find a crack. The way the board is laid out, the crack cut the lines to one of the output devices but not the others.
__________________
Good Luck All. Learn something new, everyday!
Al
WB9UVJ
www.wildstang.org
________________________
Storming the Tower since 1996.
  #11   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 29-01-2014, 09:02
Toa Circuit's Avatar
Toa Circuit Toa Circuit is offline
Thaddeus Maximus
AKA: Thad Hughes
FRC #4213 (MetalCow Robotics)
Team Role: Leadership
 
Join Date: Nov 2012
Rookie Year: 2012
Location: Shirley, IL
Posts: 131
Toa Circuit is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: Half Sidecar PWM Ports Working

Check to see if they really are getting a forward or reverse signal. Green on the Jags is forward, red is reverse.

Why do I ask? I'm guessing you're using ports 1, 2, 3 and 4 for your drive motors. 3 and 4 are on one side, correct? If so, then everything is working as it "should", just not what you are expecting. (Since on a normal FRC drivetrain, the left side is a mirror image of the right side, and the motors are rotated 180 degrees...) You'll need to change your code to drive motors 3 and 4 inverted, or on the OUTPUT side of the corresponding Jags (The side with M+ and M-), make the motor's red go to M- and the motor's black go to M+.
If that isn't what you're doing... then something very strange is going on indeed.

EDIT: I guess I didn't understand your problem correctly. You're saying that the problem isn't inversion but lack of control?
__________________

2012 Head of Programming and Electrical
2013-14 Overall Team Captain and Programming Head
2012-14 Mentor of FLL Team Power Surge
2014 Dean's List Finalist
2014 CIR Xerox Creativity Award
Webpage

Last edited by Toa Circuit : 29-01-2014 at 09:05.
  #12   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 29-01-2014, 09:46
afclsn afclsn is offline
Adam Claussen
AKA: Adam Claussen
FRC #4474 (Silver Circuit)
Team Role: Mechanical
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Rookie Year: 2013
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 24
afclsn is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: Half Sidecar PWM Ports Working

Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz View Post
We had a similar failure but do not expect this to be your exact issue. We started to lose PWM outputs one after another until half the board had no output. We replaced the DSC and checked the bad one only to find a crack. The way the board is laid out, the crack cut the lines to one of the output devices but not the others.
2 digital sidecars did the same thing, including a brand new one from the KOP. We also opened up the digital sidecar and do not see any cracks/debris/etc.

any other ideas?

thanks.

Last edited by afclsn : 29-01-2014 at 10:23. Reason: forgot something
  #13   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 29-01-2014, 10:20
afclsn afclsn is offline
Adam Claussen
AKA: Adam Claussen
FRC #4474 (Silver Circuit)
Team Role: Mechanical
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Rookie Year: 2013
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 24
afclsn is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: Half Sidecar PWM Ports Working

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toa Circuit View Post
Check to see if they really are getting a forward or reverse signal. Green on the Jags is forward, red is reverse.

Why do I ask? I'm guessing you're using ports 1, 2, 3 and 4 for your drive motors. 3 and 4 are on one side, correct? If so, then everything is working as it "should", just not what you are expecting. (Since on a normal FRC drivetrain, the left side is a mirror image of the right side, and the motors are rotated 180 degrees...) You'll need to change your code to drive motors 3 and 4 inverted, or on the OUTPUT side of the corresponding Jags (The side with M+ and M-), make the motor's red go to M- and the motor's black go to M+.
If that isn't what you're doing... then something very strange is going on indeed.

EDIT: I guess I didn't understand your problem correctly. You're saying that the problem isn't inversion but lack of control?
Yes. The problem is that the motors just spin and we have no control of them when we should be able to control them using the joystick. This is only the case for the first four ports too, since we can control them exactly as we like in the rest of the ports. We had our drivetrain running on the other ports because the first four ports will not work. The motor controllers are wired as they should be. It is really strange. We e had problems with the sidecar last year, but then it was just that metal shavings got into the sidecar and shorted it out. This is not the case this year (we opened it and checked). Any ideas, because right now we are stumped. Thanks.

Last edited by afclsn : 29-01-2014 at 10:22. Reason: More information.
  #14   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 29-01-2014, 10:59
Alan Anderson's Avatar
Alan Anderson Alan Anderson is offline
Software Architect
FRC #0045 (TechnoKats)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Rookie Year: 2004
Location: Kokomo, Indiana
Posts: 9,113
Alan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond reputeAlan Anderson has a reputation beyond repute
Re: Half Sidecar PWM Ports Working

Quote:
Originally Posted by afclsn View Post
any other ideas?
Only of the "are you sure it's plugged in?" sort. For example, what revision of the cRIO image is installed?
  #15   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 29-01-2014, 11:01
kevin.li.rit's Avatar
kevin.li.rit kevin.li.rit is offline
Imaginary Friend
AKA: Kevin Li
FRC #0596 (SciClones)
Team Role: Student
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Rookie Year: 2001
Location: Hopkinton, Massachusetts
Posts: 936
kevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond reputekevin.li.rit has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to kevin.li.rit
Re: Half Sidecar PWM Ports Working

afclsn, Can you take a picture of your side car and electronics layout for us?

Thanks.
__________________
Kevin Li

596 - Sciclones
1405 - Finney Falcons
2262 - Holliston Panthers
Closed Thread


Thread Tools
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 19:24.

The Chief Delphi Forums are sponsored by Innovation First International, Inc.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © Chief Delphi