Festo Solenoid Doesn't Work

:mad: The Festo solenoid that came with our KOP works manually but not electrically. Under 45 PSI, the LED (yellow) indicator turns on but the state of the solenoid doesnt change.

There are many messages claiming similar problems and recommend an SMC replacement. We’ve been searching for hours for a direct replacement for the Festo solenoid and a distributor without luck.

Can anyone provide a SMC partnumber and source of supply for a direct replacement for the KOP Festo solenoid?:

The Festo Valve is a self piloted valve and requires 30PSI minimum to activate. This is not a problem and is as designed.

Daniel… We’re putting 45 PSI into it and it’s not changing states. I’m still looking for a suitable substitute from SMC.

Ours was DOA as well.

SMC SY or SV3000 series are nice little valves.

Sorry, missed that.

SMC telephone number 1.800.SMC.SMC1 (To find a local distributor. I cannot read german, so this is the american site telephone number).

SMC Valve configurator

Remember to meet all <R69> requirements.

The SMC valves we recieved in previous years KOP were not a direct replacement for the Festo valve, but would work in place of them with a little bit of effort.

Sub Base, 1/8" ports, SY3000-27-1T

Single Solenoid Valve, SY3140-6H-S

Double Solenoid Valve, SY3240-6H-S

Dear Teams,

My name is Sean O’Grady. I’m the field supervisor at the ST. Louis regional and a Festo employee. In addition to the helpful troubleshooting tips that are listed above, assure that the pressure that is applied to the valve is connected to port 1. If the pressure is connected to port 3, the valve will seem to function normally with the manual override, but not with the solenoid. If you’re still experiencing problems, Festo product support engineers are available to help you at 866-GO-Festo (7AM - 7PM CST). If they’re not able to resolve your problem over the phone, they’ll arrange to ship a replacement valve to you right away.

Festo is dedicated to the mission of First, which why we have continued to sponsor the program during these difficult economic times.

Good luck!

Sean O’Grady

Sean,

First off, welcome to Chief Delphi. It’s good to see sponsors supporting FIRST, and helping out here on CD.

Secondly, thank you for the piloting information. I kinda suspected that the pilot was only on port 1 but I wasn’t sure. I’ve always felt that the Festo valves were good (even though I believe the orifice is oversized for most of our applications) valves for FIRST.

Hopefully no one will need the support line, but it’s great to know it’s there.

Thanks for the support and good luck at STL.

We have a DOA one as well. The LED lights up, but it does not switch on. There is no mechanical click at all. This was tested using 45+PSI.

Team 2411 had problems getting Festo solenoids to operate also. What we found is that the wiring information provided seems to be wrong. The documentation suggests that power should be connected to terminals 1 & 2. Our solenoids work if power is connected to terminals 1 & 3. We don’t know if this is a universal solution, but it worked for us.

Bob

http://www.pneumaticsfirst.org/TheGame/FESTO2004.htm

That is the best datasheet for the Festo that I have ever found and been using it for several years. . I have also found that the Solenoid does not like to have the cylinder hooked up backwards. (Keep the back of the cylinder on port 4)

We also had a issue but was resolved after changing the wiring as mentioned above. Since then we have not had an issue.

Fighting Rednecks
Team 2883

Our work fine if we connect power to 1 and 2. a piece of advice: make sure your solenoid breakout is receiving power. We spent a day and a half trying to figure out why it’s not working, when the problem was that we forgot a breaker.

Team 2521 is having the same problem as well. We’ve tried switching to 1 && 3, all of our wiring is correct, the breakout is receiving power, and the pneumatics are correct as well. We have no clue what to do now, anyone have suggestions?

I will second the pins 1&3 connection. 222 had the same exact problem on both of our festo valves.

Just to clarify, negative goes into 1, and the positive into 3?

I don’t remember what the polarity is, but I do remember pin 1 is correct as shown on the connection diagram from festo. We just had to move the wire from pin 2 to pin three

My Festo would not work so i just switched to a SMC single solenoid and it works fine. I am going to change the wiring on the festo to see it that was the problem.

Team 2521 can also confirm that switching to 1 & 3 worked. One of them didn’t, but we assume that that’s because it was DOA.

our festo valves wouldnt work at all… we gave up and are using last years and now they wont work either