the signal light on our robot wont come on, and neither will the tiny one on the digital side car. Can someone help please???
Have you confirmed your wiring matches both the Robot Power Distribution (with correct polarity) and Robot Data Connectivity diagrams, paying particular attention to the power and signal wires to the digital sidecar?
Is the digital module on the cRIO in slot 4 (with 1 being the slot nearest the lights)?
Are the lights green on on your cRIO?
Does anything else on the digital sidecar work (PWMs, sensors, whatever)?
yes all that is done correctly. But the light that is inside the digital sidecar where you need to plug in the signal light is also not blinking
Oh ! I had the same problem last night. Do you have two of the 40 pin sidecar modules? If so try switching the two modules and if it still doesnt work try another 40 pin cable and if it still doesn’t work try re-imaging the c-Rio. If it still doesnt work i’m not sure.
Let’s try a different approach. Are the three power supply LEDs lit on the sidecar? If not is there a breaker in the PD that is feeding battery to the sidecar? Have you rechecked the wiring at both the PD and the sidecar? It is a frequent mistake that wires at the PD end are not stripped the required 1/2-5/8 inches that is needed for correct insertion. Something less allows a user to insert the wire so far that the Wago will clamp down on the insulation and not the bare wire. Double check that the wire is correctly inserted at the sidecar end as well.
If the battery LED is on and the other lights are not, try removing the Robot signal light from the sidecar. If they come on with the RSL removed, you may have shorted the wiring for the RSL. If they do not come on, it is possible that the card is defective.
Hi, i am another programmer from 1626.
Have you confirmed your wiring matches both the Robot Power Distribution (with correct polarity) and Robot Data Connectivity diagrams, paying particular attention to the power and signal wires to the digital sidecar?
Yes
Is the digital module on the cRIO in slot 4 (with 1 being the slot nearest the lights)?
Yes
Are the lights green on your cRIO?
Yes
Does anything else on the digital sidecar work (PWMs, sensors, whatever)?
Yes the entire system works except for the signal light. On the digital sidecar we have 4 victors, 1 spike, 1 sensor, and 2 servos. All work correctly.
If so try switching the two modules and if it still doesn’t work try another 40 pin cable and if it still doesn’t work try re-imaging the c-Rio.
We have tried 4 modules, 2 40 pin cables, 2 digital sidecars, and 2 cRIOs. We also have reimaged the cRIO numerous times.
Are the three power supply LEDs lit on the sidecar?
Yes
If not is there a breaker in the PD that is feeding battery to the sidecar?
Yes the sidecar is in the 30 amp spot with a breaker
Have you rechecked the wiring at both the PD and the sidecar?
Yes we have rewired the entire system 4 times
If the battery LED is on and the other lights are not, try removing the Robot signal light from the sidecar. If they come on with the RSL removed, you may have shorted the wiring for the RSL. If they do not come on, it is possible that the card is defective.
The 3 power/ battery lights are on the digital sidecar. The Signal light still doesn’t blink and when we remove the signal light the small green led does not blink.
Please HELP! We don’t know what else to do!
Thanks for your help!
attempt to download the original code to the cRio once again. it should not make a difference as it should not be changable in the code, but in FIRST, sometimes you just have to try anything.
attempt to download the original code to the cRio once again.
Just tried this, it did not work!
What is the current image name that should be on the cRIO?
Try picking up your robot, flipping it over, and banging on it, then pick it up and shake it. This will remove all metal shavings, which can short parts of the DSC. We have had to do this twice already on our robot, we know it happens when the +5 light on the DSC goes off and nothing works, but the DSC still has power lights on.
Can you take a picture and post it? The only thing I can think of that matches your symptoms is having the module in Slot 6 instead of Slot 4.
Check to make sure have the Digital Sidecar power wired + to + and - to -. The digital sidecar will function (partially) even if its supply power is backwards, but the signal light will not function in this circumstance.
Peter,
You have tried everything I would have gone through. That really leaves only the side car as being defective. If the PWM signals that pass through are functioning normally and are disabled when the robot is disabled then it can only be the side car.
A software expert can answer this better than I but the default code is written such that the RSL functions when the robot is disabled and flashes one of a series of codes that indicate certain conditions on the robot. When enabled, the RSL light should come on solid.
"There are four states of this status LED, listed here in order of priority. If multiple occur, the highest one listed is what is displayed.
1. Fast Blink (200ms on / 200ms off) - System error: No driver's station communication, bad cRIO Image, bad team ID, extensive communication errors.
2. Steady on - Everything ok
3. Fast-Slow Blink (200ms on / 900ms off) - System disabled either by system watchdog, user watchdog, or Driver's Station set to disabled and low battery (<12 Volts)
4. Slow Blink (900ms on / 900ms off) - System disabled"image v19 would most likely be on your cRio. If you installed the latest update (out since fridayish?) you should currently be at v20 which you will need to do. download and install both the Labview and DS updates. I dont believe that this will fix this problem if you are already running v19, but its a mandatory update non-the-less
Here are the pictures you asked for.
yes samir, we are using v19 when we image the cRIO.
when you wire the signal light, do you have the jumper wire in there? you need to run positive to one of the outsides, negative on the middle one, and positive on the other outside… you can do this by soldering the positive to split into two, or by just putting a jumper wire from one side to the other…
here comes cheesy paint drawing:
Yes, we do have the jumper cable on the signal light. However, its not so much the actual light that we are worried about, the little LED signal light that is in the digital sidecar doesnt even blink.
Sounds like a bad DSC…
Can you grab last year’s DSC and swap it out to test?
If this one is bad, open it up, clean it out, and maybe lightly touch the ICs surrounding the RSL connector to see if anything is getting excessively hot while powered on.
To be honest, I don’t even remember whether the little LED near the RSL connector is supposed to blink in unison with the actual RSL.
Can anyone here confirm?
There is an LED on the sidecar that should blink in unison with the RSL. It will function without the RSL even connected. However, there is a “fuse” (possible solid state fuse) in series with the drive circuit. It is possible that the fuse has opened/failed. Please try a different DSC before we go much further.
Yes, there is a little green LED on the DSC right next to the output for the RSL power leads.
I’m starting to run out of ideas here. Theres a rare possibility that you have two bad DSC’s maybe? it sounds like you have two control systems, maybe build the benchtop system with the second system, and see if that works?
It also looks like you are running some pretty thin wire to power your DSC. Maybe try something thicker? i believe that i use 16AWG on ours. I reccomend doing the same thing on your Analog Breakout. The wire you are using on that is meant for pneumatics.