Hello,
Our team is just trying to prepare for the upcoming season (everyone in robotics last year has graduated, so were stuck learning on our own). We have
Anaged to get most things working on the old robot (camera, driving, etc). But we are having some trouble with solenoids. We have gotten the air compressir working, but the solenoids are not. I cannot figure it out.
Basically, we opened the solenoids in begin, set the registry to solenoids 1/2, then in teleop, used solenoid get then set. We want to use a button so i put a button from the joystick and wired it into the splenoids get in the value section. Then we closed them in close.
They may nit be wired right, but weve double checked and all.
Also, the joystick open vi in begin has started blinking at us after we run the program. I honestly have no idea what it means, but we can’t do anythig when it does that.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the bad punctuation, as i am typing using a phone. Thank you!
You could also print screen, paste in Paint, save as an image, and save it on a flash drive that you bring home.
Your joystick open VI is blinking? If I’m not wrong, this is supposed to mean that something is wrong with the VI and it needs to stop running. How are you running your code? Do you click the run button in Robot Main.vi with the robot connected to the computer over the network? Do you have the project window open? If not, the VI might try to run on your computer, instead of the robot. And the computer is not the cRIO, so things won’t work the way the VIs are meant to.
That is what it initially sounds like, please describe more, thanks.
Well, it’s a bit strange really. When I run the program (through robot main), it normally works. Randomly, it has this problem (the flashing) and the joystick no longer works. The program will still download fine and the robot will recieve the code and I can enable it. So its definantly connected to the robot and sending the code there.
A flashing VI usually means you have hit a breakpoint in your code. Make sure the VI is not highlighted red before you run your code. That means you have a breakpoint set.
If you wire the solenoid directly to the button, then make sure you are holding the button down when you are testing. Also you can look at the LEDs on the NI 9472 as you press the joystick buttons to tell if it may be an electrical issue. Also make sure there are no errors reported to your driver station.
Turns out we had the solenoid adapter plugged in the wrong one. Haha. Massive fail. So I plugged it in the right one, and tried using the buttons. The leds on the 9472 light up, as well as the actual solenoid port. Buuuut the pistons don’t work. If I hit the manuel release for the solenoid, it works, so air is running through the system. The button works, no electrical problems, or driverstation errors.
Measure the voltage at the solenoids and compare it what the solenoid’s coil is expecting. It is possible that you either didn’t power the module correctly, or are driving a 24V coil with 12V.
The power/ground to the solenoid could also be reversed and get a similar reaction. A simple test for that possibility is to reverse the connector at the solenoid module. Having it backwards doesn’t harm the solenoid, and if it has an indicator light, then the light will work, but the solenoid won’t move.
Another potential cause depends on the type of solenoid you are using.
Older plastic Festos had two conflicting wiring schemes.
What model is it?
