Hi,
We have 4 SPARK MAX motor drivers. Two days ago, one of them stopped driving brushed motors. At first, we thought something related to our code or wiring. Later it turned out that not only one but two of our spark max had the exact same issue. After two days of inspections today we have concluded that it is not related to our motors, wiring or code. Both of the sparks drive brushless Neo motor absolutely fine. I have already contacted REV, but the emailing process takes too long and I want to see If anyone had this issue before. If so, learn how they resolved it.
The steps we have followed are(all failed to resolve the issue):
Tried 3 CIM motors, 2 of them being brand new.
*Tried recovery mode
*Tried running motors through RHC.
*Tried example codes from REV’s github(Java).
*~100 power cycles
*Percussive maintenance
*Different computers
*Different Roborios
*Different PDPs, fuses, etc.
*Factory reset
Our other two sparks work fine with all brushed and brushless motors we could find.
Have you set the spark max to brushed mode? You need to be sure to set it correctly and save those settings - I would do it through the RHC, then try running the motor. Set it, save, it, power cycle it, and read it to make sure the setting sticks.
I suspect you updated the firmware on the Spark Max’s with the new season firmware, and the brushed mode got reset to brushless without you realizing it.
Yes, I changed its mode possibly 15-20 times today. I follow the same path as you stated. Set>Burn Flash> Power cycle>reconnect and check settings. Yep, you are correct I updated the firmware to 1.6.1 but after that I changed the settings back to brushed. Thanks for the response.
Seems to me that if the hardware client says it’s in brushed mode while simultaneously treating it as brushless, then that may be something REV needs to take a look at. @Greg_Needel Any idea if this might be a bug in the new firmware, or is there something being missed in the steps listed above, or maybe something else that we aren’t thinking of?
So I guess there was a misunderstanding or my text was confusing(If so let me know so I can edit it). Spark drives brushless motors when configured to brushless mode as intended. But when I set it to brushed mode it does get the signal to run (green or red light flashing on spark) and it thinks it is outputing power(it outputs 8.smth volts) but actually the motor doesn’t spin.
Great clarification… I think I may have just made an assumption when it wasn’t stated
Just to verify (Since I had also assumed everything was wired correctly), your brushed motors are connected using the Red/Black outputs on the Spark Max, not the white one, correct?
I don’t think it is related to our code. When I connect the other spark it works just fine. Also I can’t run the motor via Rev hardware client which further eleminates the possiblity of code being the one causing the issue. Thanks for the reply.
