How should we wire the photoswitchs?

[Tem1514 Mentor]

Lets be very careful with those 'line sensors' and the electrical hookup.

Some facts that we do know. The sensor will work just fine on 12 volts DC which generally means at the output (ie: LO,DO ) MAY have a voltage range from 0VDC to 12VDC. The Digital sidecar does have a 'general purpose' I/O lines which opearte in the 0VDC to 5VDC range!!!!!

That means if the sensor sources a 12VDC level you can kiss your digital sidecar goodbye as the blue smoke comes out. NO, a series resistor will only limit the current, not the voltage and either or both will kill a digital sidecar.

To be on the safe side I would use the analog sidecar to input the sensors.

I have not looked at the sensors tech sheets yet but will sure err on the side of caution.

Of course one way to find out is to look at the 'sample code' and see where the information for the sensors is read.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Tem1514 Mentor

The sensor will work just fine on 12 volts DC which generally means at the output (ie: LO,DO ) MAY have a voltage range from 0VDC to 12VDC. The Digital sidecar does have a 'general purpose' I/O lines which opearte in the 0VDC to 5VDC range!!!!!

The sensor outputs do not source anything. They will never have a voltage greater than what they are connected to. If you connect LO or DO to the Digital Sidecar, it will either have 5 volts (when inactive) or zero volts (when active) on the output.

I have not looked at the sensors tech sheets yet but will sure err on the side of caution.

If you haven't looked at the documentation, you shouldn't be giving advice about how to use things.

Of course one way to find out is to look at the 'sample code' and see where the information for the sensors is read.

It reads it from the Digital Sidecar DIO pins.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

The light sensor outputs will provide a closure to power common or will remain open circuit. The digital side car digital inputs have pullup resistors to +5 volts. So when the sensor is open, the output will be pulled up to 5 volts through the DSC and when the sensor is closed, the output will be pulled down zero volts through the NPN transistor in the sensor. No other components are needed. The 12 volt input is required to power the emitter and other internal electronics.

[caffel]

The original question is quite direct, but to rephrase it:

What should be connected to:
1. White
2. Black
3. Blue
4. Brown.

We have read all of the Allen Bradley docs.

They seem to show that once the two bleeder resistors are in place that the unit has two leads left.
Since one is supply at 11-30 volts DC and the other must be common, there are no leads left to serve as the output.
Where and how does the output signal get connected to the CRIO I/O?

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Charlie,
The Brown lead is connected to a positive (+12 V) output of the PD through a 20 amp breaker. The Blue lead is connected to the associated negative output of the PD. The White Lead and the Black Lead should be connected to two different digital inputs on the Digital Side Car depending on how you choose to use the device. If you choose to use a PWM cable to connect to the DSC, please cut the red wire as close to the PWM connector as you can, pull back the red wire back at least one inch and cut off the end. You may then cutoff the other end of the PWM cable, connect the black wire of the PWM to the negative wiring (Blue & Black) of the power and sensor. The white or signal wire in your PWM cable can then be connected to the White or Black lead on the sensor. The resistor loads shown in the drawing are not needed as they are provided internal to the digital inputs on the Digital Side Car. You may connect several sensors in parallel to share power supply connections only. All connections need to be insulated and soldering is recommended to keep wiring together.
The loads shown on the Rockwell drawing are indicative of relays or solenoids that are part of a control system and operate at the same voltage as the power supply, in this case 12 volts.

[andreboos]

I've wired the sensor with:

Blue: +12v from PDB
Brown: Ground on PDB
White: a DS signal pin
Black: another DS signal pin

When it receives power the orange and yellow lights alternate. Is there any documentation about the status lights? I read the document regarding Teach mode but I don't think that applies to our sensor (no push-button that I can find).

I think my code is correct but I'd like to see example code (Didn't they specifically mention that in the kickoff broadcast?). I can't find any bundled with WindRiver.

[DFZXA]

Originally Posted by andreboos

I've wired the sensor with:

Blue: +12v from PDB
Brown: Ground on PDB
White: a DS signal pin
Black: another DS signal pin

When it receives power the orange and yellow lights alternate. Is there any documentation about the status lights? I read the document regarding Teach mode but I don't think that applies to our sensor (no push-button that I can find).

I think my code is correct but I'd like to see example code (Didn't they specifically mention that in the kickoff broadcast?). I can't find any bundled with WindRiver.

Did you ever fix the alternating orange and yellow alternating lights? We have two sensors working properly just one does this weird alternating thing

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by DFZXA

Did you ever fix the alternating orange and yellow alternating lights? We have two sensors working properly just one does this weird alternating thing

Yes, he did.

[tommy0019]

we are trying to get our line sensors to work. we have it wired as:

sensor blue- 0v
Sensor brown- +12v
Sensor white- white pwm to signal pin on digital i/o section of the DSC.
sensor black- nothing

we were trying to run the autonomous mode from a new robot code project and it only runs a pre-programmed drive and doesn't respond to the sensors. then we put a jumper on the 2 power pins for the digital i/o side and when we enabled the autonomous mode nothing happened at all.

a note: our sensors are showing green when not by anything and orange and red when over the reflective tape. i heard the red meant it was over it's threshhold. what threshhold is that and is it fixed with the sensitivity knob or not?

I am asking if anyone could give any advice so we can get our line sensors working correctly.

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by tommy0019

then we put a jumper on the 2 power pins for the digital i/o side...

The Digital I/O side doesn't have 2 power pins or use jumpers.

Could you be connecting them to the PWM side (all white connectors)?

[tommy0019]

The side of the DSC that is labeled Digital i/o has 14 sets of 3 pins(sig, pwr, -) we have the sensors connected as so all with the white pwm cables.

right to digital i/o 3
center to digital i/o 2
left to digital i/o 1

There is a set of two pins right next to those 14 that are labeled pwr and (-). i am guessing that they supply power to the digital i/o pins. we put a volt meter on the pins and the supplied power when the jumper was connected.

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by tommy0019

There is a set of two pins right next to those 14 that are labeled pwr and (-). i am guessing that they supply power to the digital i/o pins. we put a volt meter on the pins and the supplied power when the jumper was connected.

Those pins are only an extra ground/5v set for devices that just need power.
Do not use a jumper to short those.

The Digital I/O was shorted out by that...

[tommy0019]

those are the correct place to put them, right(without the jumper)?

do you have any ideas as to why our robot isn't responding to the sensors?

[DFZXA]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Yes, he did.

So what'd he do then? Our robot just turns randomly in a cricle when we start the program and I'm not sure if this is the problem.

[Greg McKaskle]

There are some tutorials on the lower right of http://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-8923. The line following one will review how the LEDs and trim knob are used.

Greg McKaskle