Spikes with alternate control systems

Technical Electrical
1

Hello CD,

Since this build season is over, it is now time to start working on other projects (not before a HALO 1 LAN party!).

One project we are working on is resurrecting our 2012 bot with one of the old IFI systems. I’ve gotten the victors programmed and running fine, but now I just need to figure out how to program the spikes. Do any veteran members remember how this was done?

I would think that it would as simple as plugging in the spike to the relay bank of the Robot Controller, and mapping buttons in code, but whenever I do that (and toggle the relay1_fwd or relay1_rev on or off) nothing happens. I can tell because the indicator light on the spike does not change from solid orange even when the button reads a change in input.

Are there different types of spike (green, blue, yellow, etc)? Is there something missing?

Thanks in advance CD! Our first demonstration is in 2 days to our city board, and I would really love to show them what our robot can do!

2

Looking back to our 2007 code, it seems that we set relays using
relay_fwd=1;
relay_rev=0;

Mind you, it has been 5 years since I have even attempted to code C++, and I may be completely wrong, but I believe it is actually looking for the boolean 1 or 0 instead of on or off.

3

UPDATE:

When I take a multimeter to the relay pins on the IFI Robot Controller, the Pins show a change in voltage (0-3V for either forward or reverse) based on the button. So it looks like the RC and code is ok.

So the new questions are should the output be 0-5V for either relay? Or are spikes from the new cRIO control system different?

Thanks

4

The new Vex spikes use 5V current for the signal wires. Whether or not 3 will work, I do not know
Look up the data sheet.