Weird behavior from a Spike

[vgdude999]

So we've wired a ring of LEDs to a spike. The positive and negative are correct, we've tested them directly. When I set the spike to kOn, just as I did with another spike (which works fine), nothing happens, and the light on the spike turns off. Then, when I send it kOff, the light flashes and the fuse trips. If I send it kOff again, the breaker trips again, and I can do this as many times as I want (obviously I don't want to do it at all). The LEDs also flash when I do this.

I tried many things: replacing the fuse, replacing the entire spike, replacing the PWM, continuously sending kOn, etc. Eventually I was completely stumped. At this point I decided to change the direction of one side of the PWM cable, just for giggles (the PWM was now connected correctly on one end and wrong on the other). Much to my surprise, the spike worked perfectly.

Does anyone have any idea as to why the spike is behaving this way?

[Joe Ross]

kOn makes both outputs 12v. In this case, the LED on the spike should be off, and since there's no voltage difference across your LED Ring, it should be off also. I'm not sure why the fuse trips when you go off, possibly one output is switching before the other and shorting.

When you reversed the cable, you made one output stay at ground, and the other switched to 12v. This turned the LEDs on.

If your other spike worked with kOn, it may have a dead output.

[vgdude999]

Alright, thanks for the info.

The other spike is controlling a motor, so it's fine.

[TheJoe]

Based off of my understanding of your post, we had the EXACT same issue.

After replacing everything twice, I gave up and made the claim that it was a programming problem.

In the end, it was.
I'm no programmer, so please bear with me.

I just asked our lead programmer and my friend Matt what he did to make the LEDbox work, and he said he changed "K on" to "K forward"

Hope it helps!

[tsaksa]

I do not think there is anything a programmer can do which should cause a Spike relay to trip if the relay were working properly and it is wired correctly. There are a few tests you should probably try to verify that the electrical portion of this circuit is wired and working correctly before going too far in another direction. Here are a few things to test.

1. Are any outputs of the spike accidentally grounded? There should be no path to ground from your LEDs since you are connecting it to an H-Bridge so either output could get energized. If you have a path to ground, it should be no surprise that the breaker will trip when you switch the output in one direction.

2. Does the LED circuit have a short or low resistance? Check this with an ohmmeter first, then make sure it can be powered and works correctly from another source. Also test its current draw. LEDs do not usually pull a lot of current, but you should ensure you do not have one that pulls a pulls an unexpected amount of current, is defective, or is improperly wired.

3. What happens if you disconnect all outputs from the SPIKE and run your code? If the spike does not fault internally, then the problem is probably in the circuit it is being connected to.

4. Try testing the voltage output from the spike when operated with nothing connected and see if the outputs get controlled as expected. You might also try connecting a window motor or some other modest sized and unloaded motor to the output to watch what happens. Again, if you can drive a regular motor properly using the spike, the the problem is probably downstream from that point, meaning the LED circuit.

5. Again, check one more time for any connection to ground. When working with a SPIKE this could easily show the kind of behavior you are seeing. All circuit connections to external circuits should only go to and from the output pins of the Spike. There should be no connections anywhere else.

[vgdude999]

Originally Posted by TheJoe

Based off of my understanding of your post, we had the EXACT same issue.

After replacing everything twice, I gave up and made the claim that it was a programming problem.

In the end, it was.
I'm no programmer, so please bear with me.

I just asked our lead programmer and my friend Matt what he did to make the LEDbox work, and he said he changed "K on" to "K forward"

Hope it helps!

Is been a while but I forgot about this thread.

I did end up figuring this out, and we did have exactly the same problem.

It actually eluded me until bag and tag day when we decided to put on some decorative leds. I ran into the same problem again and realized that kOn was not the right value.

I appreciate the help even though I didn't see it