Problems with victor blowing

[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by squirrel

Is there any way you could get a picture?

What do you want the picture of? I know they were wired properly, they were identical to the other 3 that worked fine. We have multiple veterans who looked at it and we know that it is wired properly.

James

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by JamesBrown

I know they were wired properly, they were identical to the other 3 that worked fine. We have multiple veterans who looked at it and we know that it is wired properly.

If it were wired properly, it wouldn't be frying Victors repeatedly. Something is almost certainly not identical to the ones that work, and it's obviously something...um...unobvious.

Try powering up the robot with no Victor installed, and measuring the voltage on the wires that you intend to connect to the V+ and V- terminals. Also test the motor that you intend to connect to the M+ and M- terminals.

[DarkJedi613]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

If it were wired properly, it wouldn't be frying Victors repeatedly. Something is almost certainly not identical to the ones that work, and it's obviously something...um...unobvious.

Try powering up the robot with no Victor installed, and measuring the voltage on the wires that you intend to connect to the V+ and V- terminals. Also test the motor that you intend to connect to the M+ and M- terminals.

The motors all seemed to have the same resistance between them, so there isn't a short in the motors. We tested each motor individually on an older speed controller. They both worked going through a 20 AMP breaker (just in case there was a problem with too much current). We then wired it back up the same we had it (through the 40 AMPs) and its all working fine now. Although we're still not positive what the problem was.

Thanks for everyones help.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Patrick, I don't call it fixed until I have a "smoking gun". Something was wrong, even if it was a broken Victor that was replaced with a broken Victor. Keep looking. Murphy's law says it will go bad again on the final match on Einstein.

[DarkJedi613]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Patrick, I don't call it fixed until I have a "smoking gun". Something was wrong, even if it was a broken Victor that was replaced with a broken Victor. Keep looking. Murphy's law says it will go bad again on the final match on Einstein.

I never said it was fixed, just that it seems to be working fine now. We're still going to investigate the problem, but we had to leave the shop today. We're going to contact IFI and see if its possible it was a speed controller. We're also going to check every crimp and connection, make sure that nothing could have shorted, etc.

We haven't given up yet...

[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Patrick, I don't call it fixed until I have a "smoking gun". Something was wrong, even if it was a broken Victor that was replaced with a broken Victor. Keep looking. Murphy's law says it will go bad again on the final match on Einstein.

We agreed, the reason the circuit was reassembled is we were trying to reconstruct the problem in the lab(rather than when driving). We removed all of our drive electronics and then tested them one thing at a time. We checked for shorts to ground as well as abnormal resistances in motors, and victors. We then added our components together until the whole control system was rebuilt. We are hoping the issue was just with the victors (as Pat said we are contacting IFI). We will update if we find anything else.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by JamesBrown

What do you want the picture of?

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, we were building a robot

I just think that it's helpful to take a few pictures of the wiring/electronics board so we can "look over your shoulder". It is very difficult to diagnose someone else's problems with only a short description of the situation. A picture is worth a thousand words...it may reassure us that you do indeed have everything wired up properly, or we may notice something that you didn't.

Sounds like you may have fixed the problem, even if you don't know what was wrong...I hope it was just some simple thing that you overlooked the first time.

[DarkJedi613]

Well it seems that it was a bad CIM motor. It happened once more a week ago. We changed out the motor and it has been fine since then. Most likely a short that occured only in certain positions.