How to wire 12v lights

[zeldathegood]

Hi folks -

We are trying to get some 12v lights on the robot prior to bag 'n tag. We have tried wiring into voltage regulator module with no luck. We were told going straight to the PDP was illegal? Can someone help? What is the easiest legal way to wire some 12v lights?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[cantdecide]

Can you expand a bit more on "with no luck"? What happened? Did you not get any power or...?

[zeldathegood]

No Power
No Lights

[cantdecide]

Have you confirmed that the lights actually work? While the robot is off, try connecting the positive end of the light to the positive terminal on a battery, and vice versa for negative. If that works, try checking the 12V output on your VRM using a multimeter. It would also help if you could post a picture of your wiring.

[zeldathegood]

Yes, we've confirmed that the lights work but not wired through the voltage regulation module. They work in the PDP.

[GeeTwo]

If you do not need to turn them off, direct wiring to the PDP is allowed and very easy. If you have multiple strings, use a splice away from the PDP, as only one wire is allowed in each PDP connector.

If you do need/want to turn them off, a spike relay is the easy way to do it, though a 12V relay module is also workable, and can be switched from a DIO rather than requiring the current of a relay port. At this hour, you'll probably have to use what you have on hand.

[Fusion_Clint]

I have to ask, did you plug them into the 12 Volt side of the VRM and not the 5 Volt side? Remember that only the D-link can be plugged into the 12 volts 2 amp slots on the VRM.

We put ours directly to the PBP, with a manual switch to allow us to change between blue or red so that we can match our alliance color.

[zeldathegood]

If we can go direct we are good. Thank you all so much for your last minute help. Good luck to all of you.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Fusion_Clint

I have to ask, did you plug them into the 12 Volt side of the VRM and not the 5 Volt side? Remember that only the D-link can be plugged into the 12 volts 2 amp slots on the VRM.

We put ours directly to the PBP, with a manual switch to allow us to change between blue or red so that we can match our alliance color.

If the LEDs are 12V, they would not work in the 5V terminals. I had assumed that they were legally wired into the 500mA 12V terminals of the VRM.