Wiring issues, help needed

[halomaster69]

hi, this is the head of the electrical subteam on team #1505 Roybotics. This is our first year in the FIRST competition. well we just got done rewireing our electrical board and it doesnt work. before it did, we could test all the systems, we got a new borad lexan, and we got some victors and other stuff. like i said before it worked, not it doesnt. the only thing that we did different was that we didnt put all the victor fans on a single circut, and we wrapped some of the wires in this spiral wire tie thing. when we turned it on, the fans twitched, then nothing, the led on the breaker panel didnt light up or anything. we tested the circuts, the battery had 12 volts, the main buss had 12 volts going through it, the termainals on the breaker board had like 1.2 volts, and i could smell metal heating up, no smoke though, when we unhooked everything all the wires and stuff it worked, it lit up. but with the wires, nothing.

Please post or e-mail me at Halomaster69@gmail.com if you have any info please help.

thank you

[Mike Betts]

Originally Posted by halomaster69

hi, this is the head of the electrical subteam on team #1505 Roybotics. This is our first year in the FIRST competition. well we just got done rewireing our electrical board and it doesnt work. before it did, we could test all the systems, we got a new borad lexan, and we got some victors and other stuff. like i said before it worked, not it doesnt. the only thing that we did different was that we didnt put all the victor fans on a single circut, and we wrapped some of the wires in this spiral wire tie thing. when we turned it on, the fans twitched, then nothing, the led on the breaker panel didnt light up or anything. we tested the circuts, the battery had 12 volts, the main buss had 12 volts going through it, the termainals on the breaker board had like 1.2 volts, and i could smell metal heating up, no smoke though, when we unhooked everything all the wires and stuff it worked, it lit up. but with the wires, nothing.

Please post or e-mail me at Halomaster69@gmail.com if you have any info please help.

thank you

You have wired something up backwards. Pull all breakers except fot the RC. Insure that that power input is correct and then power up. If OK, then insert one breaker at a time to determine the bad circuit.

[Mike AA]

Originally Posted by halomaster69

hi, this is the head of the electrical subteam on team #1505 Roybotics. This is our first year in the FIRST competition. well we just got done rewireing our electrical board and it doesnt work. before it did, we could test all the systems, we got a new borad lexan, and we got some victors and other stuff. like i said before it worked, not it doesnt. the only thing that we did different was that we didnt put all the victor fans on a single circut, and we wrapped some of the wires in this spiral wire tie thing. when we turned it on, the fans twitched, then nothing, the led on the breaker panel didnt light up or anything. we tested the circuts, the battery had 12 volts, the main buss had 12 volts going through it, the termainals on the breaker board had like 1.2 volts, and i could smell metal heating up, no smoke though, when we unhooked everything all the wires and stuff it worked, it lit up. but with the wires, nothing.

Please post or e-mail me at Halomaster69@gmail.com if you have any info please help.

thank you

Check for shorts and correct polarity to all your Victors and Spikes. Check all your connections. Check power before the breaker panel, right where the main power connects to it to see if you actually have 12 volts(+/-) there, if not then there's a loose connection.

-MIke

[Darwin695]

Yes, polarity is key... Often times it is easy to wire a battery backwards, and not notice it because of the anderson connector...

Make sure that your battery is wired correctly...

ALSO

Your victor fan wires do not need to go to the same circuit...
I would recomend wiring the fans to the power terminals on each of the Victors. That way if a breaker to a victor is popping, or you have a short, or bad polarity, you can identify it with the fans (they do not spin in reverse...)

hope this helps... i know it is not fun to have electrical problems a week before ship date....

[Evilfrog87]

Hi

It sorta sounds like the 120 amp breaker is installed backwards.

-Scott(Student Head of Electrical for Team 93, using Daves account)

[jdiwnab]

I would be careful about things heating up. When you say the board has 1.2V, be advised that the 1.2 V are being 'dropped' accross the board. somthing (like resistance, or a short) is causing the voltage to be dropped. This may or may not be a problem, I don't know how much voltage is suposed to be dropped. To me this sounds like a large number. During the off season, we were driving last year's robot around and the controller kept on telling us low battery. We would switch the battery and it would still complain. We check the batteries and they would all read 12 V +. But we touched the main breaker and noticed it was very hot. Apparently the beaker was dropping atleat 2V. the breaker shouldn't have dropped any, but it didn't cut off like it was supposed to. I have gotten kind of off subject, but make sure that you don't burn anything up. Just because you don't see the magic smoke, doesn't mean it isn't comming out.

[Justin_302]

it does sound like some wires were backwards. another suggestion would be to use polycarb insted of lexan. poly is much more durable and wont break

[408Oxidation]

Could be a short or something in the wiring. If you rewired it all the same way that's the most likely problem. Not all the Victor's need to be on the same circuit I know ours aren't.
While we're here...
Anyone had issues with some of the Victors blinking orange rather than completely lighting up? We have one that isn't working at all and just sits and blinks, perhaps something with the PWM cable, but I'm looking for other ideas. We tried it with 5 different PWM's and its hooked up the same as the other 3...Ideas anyone?
Good luck.