REV Blinkin Without PDP

Technical Electrical
1

Hello CD,

I just had a quick question about good old LED’s. I was looking through past posts for information, and couldn’t find what I was looking for.

I’m looking for a way without using a PDP port for the REV blinkin. Or really any other way to control the status of LED’s. We’d also like it to be powered via robot’s battery, not COTS Battery pack. And to avoid interfering with our radio, we also don’t want to use the VRM. Could we put it into a RoboRio PWM slot with an FRC legal control board or relay? Anyone know of anything like this used in the past?

Thanks!

1 Like
2

You can run a 5V WS2812 strip directly off a roboRIO PWM port, but note that the 6V rail on the RoboRIO is limited to a total 2.2A output, and some strips can draw more current than this per meter of length. So, if you do this, keep it short. https://docs.wpilib.org/en/latest/docs/software/actuators/addressable-leds.html

As for powering a Rev Blinkin, are all 16 of your PDP ports used up by motors and/or PCM? If one of them is a limelight or something, you can tap into that same circuit, as long as there is only one physical wire going into the PDP.

3

I know in 2018 we ran our LEDs off of the pneumatics control module, which somewhat limited our color choices but it worked very well

4

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.