I’ve been trying to set up a 2009 Festo solenoid, and it hasn’t been firing. The manual fire switch works perfectly, and the LED is switching to orange when it should go into the extended state, and switching off when it should be in the retracted position (I’m assuming that that’s how it should work). However, it still doesn’t fire, even when the LED switches.
Is this a known problem, or am I working with a defective solenoid?
Are you working with Air Pressure? The Festos require a minimum of around 45 PSI to fire, last time I played with them (admittedly a few years ago).
Yes, we have a compressor, air storage tanks, automatic shut-off switch, etc hooked up and running. The solenoid is the only part of the system that I still can’t get to work.
The air-carrying part is working right, though, because the manual fire switch still makes the piston go up and down. I’m fairly certain that I have the wiring done correctly according to the festo’s guidelines, and it’s plugged into the correct module in slot 8 of the cRIO. At this point, I really have no idea where the problem might be, unfortunately.
There are two different ways to wire the Festos and you can’t tell by looking at them which way each should be - terminals 1&2 or 1&3.
Have you tried both ways?
What language are you using, Labview?
The festo might be bad. Last year we had a festo that did the exact same thing that you described, we switched it out with a new one and it worked perfectly. If you have access to another one try switching them.
I believe Mark is correct. the pins you should be using are pins 1 & 3. We had this same situation during build season. Several other teams had the same problem. I can’t recall the correct polarity, but I know that pin 1 is correct polarity wise. All you should have to do is swap the wire from pin 2 to pin 3. If that doesn’t work I would assume there’s something else going on. Good luck!
Thanks for the help, the switch from 2 to 3 made it work. 