Possible 5v Power Distribution Trip

[fiferdc]

I was testing out a program to use the servos on the axis camera to have it follow a target. When the servos first moved, they yanked the axis mount and it fell over onto one of the nuts connecting power to the power distribution board. I've tested everything out and the only thing I can't get to turn on is the camera. I've noticed that there is a slight burnt smell around the 5V connection on the power distribution board and that when I hook the camera up to it, the 5V light doesn't turn on. Is there a way to know that I have tripped that breaker and not ruined the camera?

[apalrd]

Find a 5v wall brick and hook it up to the camera power supply.

We actually killed the 5v supply on the DSC of our practice robot last year... We stopped using the camera on the comp. robot before this happened, so we just left it. This year, we are repurposing the practice robot control system for this years practice robot, and we decided to use a wall brick and drag an extension cord because we were just doing vision tracking and not actually moving (just rotating).

[fiferdc]

Found a 5V wall brick and tested it; no lights. So how could the camera have been messed up?

EDIT: I just opened the camera up. Nothing seemed burnt to me.

[apalrd]

How was the camera mounted; was the nut in the back connected directly to the metal bracket or was it connected to a polycarb piece connected to the bracket (as an electrical insulator)?
If you didnt have an insulator, you would have fed the camera with more than twice its wanted voltage by connecting it to raw battery voltage. That would surely kill it.
If you did have the polycarb, it would probably still work and probably did not see ~13v, but still could have. Did you have the camera connected to Ethernet?

The lights on the side of the camera lens are orange when it has power but not in use, they turn green when the camera is connected to by the cRio (I think thats what it is, it could be the camera booting up and the camera boot is always tied to the cRio boot)

[fiferdc]

I guess I was only looking at the front of the camera. If you were referring to the back LEDs, then they light up. Then when do the front lights (the ones around the lens) light up?

So then if I haven't killed the camera, is there a way to replace the 5V trip in the power distribution board?

[apalrd]

The lights on the front light up when the camera is on. If it is connected to the cRio and the cRio is on, it will be green in under a minute. Try rebooting the cRio after plugging in the camera. To my knowledge, there is no way to fix the 5v supply on the PD board; we plan on using a new PD board on our robot.

[fiferdc]

Thanks. I hooked the patch cable up to the cRIO and they lit up. I was working on our spare robot, which had an additional power distribution board on it. Since we have two robots and one camera, I don't think there should be any problem with it on the other robot.

Again, thanks!

[EricVanWyk]

Shorting the battery through the camera has a good chance of breaking things. If it doesn't fix itself, there isn't much you can do to fix it internally (and I think it would be 'illegal' anyway).

Did this happen on a 2009 or 2010 PD? On a 2009, you almost definitely blew the ground return trace on the 5V power supply. On a 2010, there is a self-resetting circuit breaker in line that should heal in a few seconds. However, I wouldn't be surprised if a 2010 still broke, depending on how the short happened - it is a LOT of energy to handle!

You could try powering the camera off of the 5V in either the DSC or the 2009 Analog Breakout, as they are all the exact same circuit. Not sure if its legal for competition though.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by EricVanWyk

You could try powering the camera off of the 5V in either the DSC or the 2009 Analog Breakout, as they are all the exact same circuit. Not sure if its legal for competition though.

It's not legal, per <R45C>, however we have done it off the digital sidecar before.