Broken Camera -- Help

[efoote868]

A member on our team hooked into the camera the power pwm backwards, and now it won't turn on.

any suggestions, or ideas? Any help is appreciated.

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by efoote868

A member on our team hooked into the camera the power pwm backwards, and now it won't turn on.

any suggestions, or ideas? Any help is appreciated.

It's most probably fried. Check IFI forums or call IFI for further assistance.

[efoote868]

i sent them an email... hopefully I'll get a response

[intellec7]

To my knowledge, this should not damage the camera. The PWM cables are configured in a way to prevent damage by simply reversing the connection. This is because the positive voltage (red wire, in this case around 7.2v) is always in the center, and instead you are only swapping the ground (black) and signal (white) wire. Was the serial connection connected to the RC when this happened?

[efoote868]

Actually, we figured it out. They were using a low backup battery. ::sigh of relief:: Consider this thread closed, and good luck to everyone!

[Bomberofdoom]

Gah, thank you for the confermation. I pluged a few of my PWM backwards all the time and I was afraid as, someone said, that it is fried.
Well, back to trying to understand how to conncet the camera... :|

[X-Istence]

Low Backup Battery is a problem that my team had last year as well. What we ended up doing was using a VEX 7.2 v NiCad battery instead since they are the same batteries that are found in RC cars and other such items. They are legal under the FRC 2007 rules as well.

The other options is to use the wire diagram on the IFI site to make a battery charger that charges from the 12V battery, in which case it does not matter what kind of battery pack is used for the 7.2V's.

[Bomberofdoom]

I accidenlty tried to use the BIN files to upload to the code(didn't work of course). I switched it back to the HEX and SOMETHING actually happened. The COM said that there was no camera data, but when I looked at the camera, the red light disappeared. I did it again, then the green one disappeared. Does that mean that the backup battery is running up of power.