Convert 24v solenoids to 12v

[Jared]

Originally Posted by Travis Schuh

Why are you looking to run 12v instead of 24v solenoids? The robo-rio accepts both, and our experience from beta testing is you want to run 24v due to brownout issues.

I know you can just buy the solenoid end plugs for the SMC solenoids, because we recently bought some to upgrade our 12v solenoids to 24v. I imagine you could do the reverse.

Could you elaborate on the brownout issues?

[Travis Schuh]

Originally Posted by Jared

Could you elaborate on the brownout issues?

The 12v solenoid power supply comes directly from the battery (un-regulated). When the battery voltage drops low, the solenoids don't fire. This was also an issue with the C-Rio (we found that when our robot was under heavy load, our shooter would not fire and traced the problem down to this). The 24v solenoid power comes from a voltage boost that works down to lower voltages, so it isn't impacted by low battery voltages.

[mrnoble]

Thanks for the replies. We got six 24v solenoids today in the first choice thing; we've always used the 12v and I was being lazy and asked y'all for advice rather than look up our options. I appreciate your help and am slightly embarrassed that I didn't try to figure this out first. But, it does speak to how high I hold the Chief In my esteem.