Is anyone having trouble with their light? Is it common for the light to stop spinning?
We are a rookie team, and don’t remember seeking people with “still” lights in the past, but our light only likes to spin “sometimes”.
Sometimes we need to give it a “kickstart” and sometimes it just chooses not to spin at all. We didn’t modify anything… So far all we did was mount it on a block of wood so It can stand up while we test our bot. Thanks in advance…
yeah, we had that problem too, but then it went away. just push it a bit, and it should work. i’m not sure how our’s got fixed, but it works now.
We also seem to have a very unique problem with our light as well. Apparently it is absent. We are still waiting for the parts from FIRST. Is anyone else waiting too, or should we be worried?
They sent the first shipment of lights they got in to rookie teams. All we can hope is that we DO get ares in the next 2 weeks. obviously we don’t have ours either.
No light yet here.
Last year the light was intermintit, but I think that was a wireing problem.
Check to make sure the wires are all securly fastened. They may be loose and hitting may knock the wires into a compleate circut.
Another thing to check for on the light is to make sure that the screws/bolts holding it to the robot are insulated from the metal on the light. We had this problem last year, and our whole robot frame was grounded. We didn’t realize it till a judge at nationals caught the problem and told us to fix it. So, that probably won’t cause the problem you’re having, but be careful about it anyway.
Oh, we don’t have our light either 
Stephen
Wiring is fine and it is isolated away from the robot.
Light stays on, it just doesn’t spin. Looks like the motor is binding or something. Will probably take it apart and put it back together.
Seems more like a poor manufacturing issue.
If the light only occasionally stops, it could be because of a low battery. Otherwise, we’ve not had any trouble.
When your light stops, does it just stop spinning or does the light stop shining also? Because if it just stops spinning, there is a problem with the light, if the light turns off occasionally you might want to check the battery, the wires, the breakers, and look on your controller interface to see if there are robot errors.
We had that problem last year, honestly all we did was hit it on the top and sides when it stopped rotating and it worked…I dont know if you will be as fortunate as we were but its worth a try…
Brian Team 56
Last year our light (the same as this year) quit turning in the middle of a match. The motor fried. FIRST gave us a new one, but it looks like there may be a quality issue here.
One other thing to look for is the infamous 255 max limit for PWM1 or PWM2 in your control code. That little gremlin can bite you. All PWM output values should be limited to 254 or less.
ours stopped rotating last year.
that’s cuz i disassembled it and didnt put it back properly. (oops? :rolleyes: )
-antoninny
This year when we pulled out last year’s robot our light wouldnt rotate. We have never had problems before. I connected it directly to a battery and it still wont rotate. There must be a problem with the lights themselves.
I agree with the quality issue…
On a full battery on relay 8 (always on) the light turns on and SHINES fine. Sometimes you gave give it a nudge (technical term) and it will spin. Other times it will just sit there, shinning and mock you… " No I will not spin…"
We are not a rookie team, this our second year, and we just got our light and accessories today, so teams that haven’t got them yet should be recieving them real soon.
Our team’s light also doesn’t rotate all the time, and we definately think its a quality issue thing. Sometimes it just stops, as if jammed. Usually if you give it a small push it goes, other times you have to manually spin it. We’re thinking about taking it apart and finding the sheizerness in it ourselves.
Two things to look for…
First, always check that the hardware inside the light is tight because any wires that are under hardware conduct power to the light and motor. Since the light is intended for use on automobiles the body of the light is one side of the power supply. The mounting hardware is designed to conduct and needs to be tight to make that happen. (The lamp “on” is only relative…how bright is bright?)
Second, check the connections on the Spike. If you haven’t measured the current to the light you will be surprised that it is a lot higher than you think.
Al
Ours works just fine. We just got it 3 days ago! finally
:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
I bet one of the students took the lens off and started twirling the reflector in there lol.
