IR SENSOR BOARD

[SuperSexcGuy]

hi im SuperSexcGuy and i was wondering how will i know if my ir sensor board works or not... I used a 9V battery to turn it on but i got no results..the chip does not turn on Can some one please tell me how i can find out if i need a new 1?

[Alan Anderson]

If the LEDs do not light as expected when you correctly follow the directions in the IR board documentation, it is possible that your IR board is faulty. You can check to make sure the 5 volt regulator is indeed providing 5 volts; if it is not, you can try replacing it to see if that makes the board work properly.


(For what it's worth, I think you'll be more likely to get constructive advice if you identified yourself and your team with a less foolish attitude.)

[GrammarNazi]

He is the mascot though.

[hunter7]

We had the same thing happen, we programmed it and then put it away for the day. The next day it wouldn't turn on, so we have no idea what to do.

[Miner]

Make sure that you have the positive lead connected to pins 1 and/or 2 and negative to pins 3 and/or 4. If you did it backwards, you might have seen a puff of smoke or a wierd noise or something. That would mean that your voltage regulator is blown.

If that is not the case and the voltage regulator is putting out 5 volts, contact FIRST... other teams have come up with faulty boards.

Good luck!

[Bochek]

We ran into the same problem today.

It was working fine (as it has been for the last 2 weeks), we moved the robot to another room and it no longer works.

Took it all apart and tested it,
Power regulator is fine, and everything checks out okay, but no led's are lighting and the board is not functioning, my guess is that a low voltage situation caused the PIC16F chip on the board to loose its memory. The board probably requires a re-program which we can do if we had the code.

- Bochek

[urg8rb8]

We have experienced a problem today with our IR board as well. Our board would power up (so the voltage regulator seems to be working correctly), go through the regular training, but then would stop detecting any of the signals. We were able to get it working before using the same remote but all of a sudden it stopped working. Not sure why.

I have read that some teams have been able to reflash the microcontrollers on these boards. Can someone please provide some information on how to obtain the microcontroller software, the programmer, and the program cabling?

That would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

[EricS-Team180]

Originally Posted by urg8rb8

We have experienced a problem today with our IR board as well. Our board would power up (so the voltage regulator seems to be working correctly), go through the regular training, but then would stop detecting any of the signals. We were able to get it working before using the same remote but all of a sudden it stopped working. Not sure why.

I have read that some teams have been able to reflash the microcontrollers on these boards. Can someone please provide some information on how to obtain the microcontroller software, the programmer, and the program cabling?

Dang! Same thing happenned to us! We were speculating that we could re-flash the PIC. ...looks like I'll go searching. Frankly we're been very "gentle" with this board, since it is a new "toy". If these problems are common, I'll have to doubt it usefulness in competition. .....we'll see

Eric