RoboRIO Red Power Light

[Jared]

Yesterday, we had the power light on the roboRIO turn red a few seconds after we turned it on. The roboRIO was connected to some speed controllers in a configuration that had worked previously, but randomly stopped working.

I haven't found any documentation explaining what a red power light was, so I was wondering what it meant, and how we could prevent it from happening again. We were able to fix the issue by unplugging everything but power, starting the device, then plugging in only two speed controllers. We did not attempt to plug in all the speed controllers because we didn't need them all, and we did not want the issue to come back.


Here are some details:
With the red light on, we could not communicate with the roboRIO, but the lights on the ethernet port would sometimes flash.
When the robot is switched on, the power light is green for a few seconds, then turned red.
The power light is distinctly RED, not orange. I've seen it orange before, and this was red.
The voltage at the roboRIO power connection while this was happening was 12.5 volts
When we pushed the reset button, the device power cycled, but the light remained red.
The roboRIO seemed to be slightly warmer than room temperature, but had been on for several hours at that point, so this might be normal.
When we booted into safe mode, the power light stayed green.