I have one of the Innovation First Spikes hooked up to the PD board. Nothing else is connected to the spike, nothing to the M+ and M- and nothing to the pwm port.
When I turn on the robot, the spike has a solid red light.
According to the User Guide for the spike, red means reverse. However, if I take a multimeter to the M+ and M- terminals, i get 0V
When I take the multimeter to the 12V and GND terminals, I get 12V so the spike is definitely getting power. And definitely no chance of reverse polarity because 12V terminal is connected to the red on the PDB and GND is connected to black on the PDB.
Also, fuse looks intact.
I am really puzzled by this and I hope you guys can help.
I seem to remember getting a solid red light with no PWM cable attached, but I can’t say for sure. See if the light goes out when you plug the PWM cable in to the Relay port on the Digital Sidecar.
Note that Spike Relays do NOT get connected to PWM outputs on the Digital Sidecar; instead they must be connected to “Relay” outputs. And yes, B indicates Black (Ground)
Also, actually remove the fuse and check it, or measure its continuity.
In my experience the “yellow” for no signal looks very red. If it turns green when you set it to forward and red (generally a slightly different red, although I don’t think I could say which is which out of context) when you set it to reverse then you’re fine.
Actually, according to the user guide on the IFI website, the OFF state with both M+ & M- at ground is indicated by the LED glowing orange.
Is the LED really red or does it look somewhat orange?
I’d vote that the neutral color of the signal light just happens to appear to be a shade of orange/red.
We have debates about what color the real neutral shade is all the time.
The fuse is also good if you have a light. It goes out altogether if there’s no fuse. The Spike circuits are protected by the fuse.
Then it’s definitely that you have a lack of signal. If when you connect a motor, or whatever your desired application is, and apply a signal, you should see green/red lights. Seems like you’re okay.
I know for our team we have one or two spikes whose “orange” is actually a bit more red than I would really like. Other than that, they work fine. Try using them, they should still work perfectly.
Spikes are a very random moor controller. The fuse can be intact, the PWM can be plugged into the correct relay slot, and a light may appear, but sometimes it just refuses to work. Our team has a LOT of OLD spikes and a few, that were tested, work so far without any indication. I know this because tested the same spike and compared I with the new VEX spike by changing the Relay PWMs to the new spike and got a signal. So if the problem persists, just keep testing to your heart’s content.
Light is usually orange when powered up. We had a red light on one of our spikes when we powered up, pulled out the pwm to find it melted. :eek: Yeah, it smelled bad and was toast. Don’t know for sure if the red light was indicating a fault, but I’d put a small amount of money on it.
Digging up an old thread here, but I am curious to know if this issue was resolved. Our team is having a similar issue. Red when the power is on and no PWM cable plugged in, but NO light once the PWM is inserted.
We tested to see if information is coming through the PWM and it is. We checked the fuse (never blown). We tested the wiring and all is fine.
We went through three spikes (insert a new spike, the compressor works for a match or two and then quits) in a single event trying to get this resolved! Does anyone have a clue what this could mean?
The “red when powered, off when connected” symptom doesn’t seem to match any reasonably likely failure I can think of. It implies that the Spike thinks it’s getting commanded Reverse without any control input at all, and that it thinks it’s being commanded both sides on when it’s probably getting a “both sides off” signal.
I’d have to inspect the wiring, and watch the LEDs on the Digital Sidecar during operation, in order to have any clue what might be causing multiple Spikes to eventually go crazy like that.
Thank you for the quick response. Though our robot is locked up for our next competition, I can tell you that on the DSC, the PWM for the compressor is connected to a relay port and the light is green when enabled.
I can run more diagnostics with the robot Friday, but I kept the spikes outside of the bag so I could try to see if they were bad.
It’s also possible that you have one of the Spikes whose neutral light has a distinct reddish tinge.
That would be a normal failure mode where neutral glows but green (forward) is broken on the Spike.
First, a big thank you to your team. Without your website on pneumatics, I don’t think we could have gotten it working this year!
I’m wondering if your comments are related. I can tell you that the orange light was present when the compressor worked for the couple matches prior to failure.
Does the Red light without information signal mean failure and therefore a bad/dead Spike?