We need help getting motors moving using Labview!!!

This is team 6178 from Moose Jaw Sask. we are having trouble right now on making our robot move. It seems that we have it all set up but it doesn’t move when we give it commands. Our computer says that there is something connected to it and that it is able to run but it doesn’t recognize that the motors are ready and working. We’re thinking its the wiring but we can’t find a problem with it because it looks just like the picture. Like I said before everything looks good until we give it commands to move. We’re new to this kind of programming and are using Labview as our program.

Check out our post on our website below to see some pictures. We are trying to use the generic setup from the rookie build from this season. Thanks for any help you can give us!

http://vanier.htcsd.ca/robotics/index.php/2016/02/15/help-us-get-our-motors-moving/

Looking at you pictures it looks like you have your PWM cables backward. The black should go to ground Red in the middle and white to S. Flip them around and see what happens.

It’s hard to tell from the small picture, but to me it looks like your PWM cables are plugged in with the white wire toward the outside of the roboRIO. This is the signal wire which should line up with the S label for the PWM ports. If your PWM wires are plugged in with the white wire towards the outside, this plug needs to be flipped around so the black wire is towards the outside of the roboRIO.

Eric

Thank you for your help! We switched the PWM plugs around so the black and red wires are lined up properly. We restarted everything, but it still isn’t responding to the joystick control. Here’s a screen shot of our labview.

http://vanier.htcsd.ca/robotics/index.php/2016/02/15/help-us-get-our-motors-moving/

Your Driver Station is showing error messages, but your screen captures are shrunk and don’t have enough resolution for me to read what they say. Please post them at actual size.

Sorry about the small pictures. I reposted them as large as they can go. We don’t have a camera, so it gives us that error.

In the Teleop code, there is an array. On the output of the array (right side) this goes to the Arcade Drive block (which is correct). On the input to the array (left side) you need to put in the axis number for the controller (ex. “4” and “5”). This tells the code what axis will control the Forward/Reverse, and what axis will control the Left/Right.

EDIT: Added picture as an example. See blue numbers.





What kind of joystick or game controller are you using to command the motors?

Look at the USB configuration tab on the Driver Station to make sure you have it connect as USB 1. It has indicators that tell you what the axes and buttons values are. Make sure you’re getting responses on the axes that you have wired to the Arcade Drive function (0 and 1).

We changed the axis numbers to 1 and 4 and fired it up and it works!

Thank you aeastet, ebmonon36, Alan Anderson, and JPL69 for all your help. We really appreciate your time and wisdom. You can imagine the excitement in the room when it finally started to move!

Really glad to hear it.