trouble with program solenoid with compressor

[richardharman]

I have gotten the cRio to work with a simple three motor drive and then decided to become ambitious and try to get the pneumatics system working.

I brought up the solenoid with compressor program from the WPI library and loaded it into the cRIO (not as start up, just by hitting the run button, bringing up the driver station on the developer side and then hitting enable in the practice mode)

•  Before doing this, I made sure that following connections were made:

•  The pump was wired to  a spike and the spike was wired according to the drawing that appears on the front panel of the solenoid with compressor program

•  The solenoid break out was wired to power (at first to 12 V but then upon reading the FRC pneumatics manual I wired it to 24 V)

•  The shut off valve was wired to the digital I/O  as shown in the front panel diagram of the program

•  The solenoid was wired to the solenoid output 1 of the pneumatics break out

•  The spike control in was wired to the relay 1 out on the sidecar as shown in the front panel diagram

•  all other pneumatics were hosed and wired as per the FRC pneumatics manual

Upon running the program this is what happens

•  The pump does not come on.  I checked all wiring and even switched out the spike in case I was using a bad spike.  Ultimately I ran the pump from an outside 12 V source

•  At first I had the pneumatics breakout connected to a 12 V source and was using SMC 12 V solenoids.  When I hit the solenoid switch on the front panel (this program does not incorporate joysticks)  the solenoid would click but the cylinder would not budge.  After changing to the 24 V source (I simply spliced into the 24 V wire going to the cRIO and ran that to the pneumatics bumper)  the solenoid worked fine and the cylinder would pop out.

At this point I called the helpful people at ni who apparently are the only reliable source for getting anything done with this year's control system.  (the training videos and pdfs are fraught with half truths and down right deceptions.  For half truths see the simple motor control training video.  It is last years video and does not work with this years system.  You have to search for half an hour to half a day to find the pdf for this years simple motor control there being no video.  For outright lie, see page 43 of the part 2 of the 2010 control system where some mean person has perpetrated the myth that you can go from arcade drive to tank drive simply by turning to the - position the "z" wheel.  Geesh, these guys are as bad as AM talk radio hosts.

I would highly recommend that all of you give up on the written material and just call ni but I think  that is occurring anyway because when I called them I was put on hold (for the first time) for quite a long time and the music they play while they put you on hold is dreadful.

Anyway, even Olivia at ni couldn't help on this one and is going to run the program on her pneumatics system and I will call her tomorrow so stay tuned for the exciting results.

[richardharman]

OK  Do I feel dumb.

The digital sidecar power had become disconnected.  When this happens, a lot of things, including the PWMs still work.  I powered it up this morning and now the compressor as well as the solenoids work using the front panel of the solenoid with compressor example.

Now I will get really ambitious and try to get the solenoid to trigger using a joystick.  Is there really a chance that I can do this without bugging the daylights out of the good folks at ni or losing my mind?

Stay tuned.......

helpful hint...  If you are on the developer side (and have the driver station open on this side) and cannot get the robot communications or robot code light to go green do not hurl the classmate against a wall.  Go back to the the driver station side,  choose set up and then choose exit.  The good folks at ni are working on an upgrade to alert you to this but it is an easy thing to overlook (although a classmate smashing against a wall is a beautiful thing to witness at least one time in your life)

[EHM]

We are considering the use of pneumatics - but are unable to get the sample code for the compressor to work.  After diagnosing further - it's the relays that we can't get to work properly.  I tried the simple relay example with the relay connected to the compressor.  The relays weren't activating.  The LEDs on the digital side car never lit - and the LED on the actual spike relay never changed color.  There is only one pair of wires that need to be connected to the side car for power - right?  We have that one connected.  When we disconnect that one there are lots of status lights and such that go dark - so I'm assuming that is the one we need - but our symptoms are a lot like yours.  Any other diagnostics you can think of for us?

Thanks