I am trying to program my robot to fire the air pistons in and out, but I am unable to actually get them to activate or to hold the air. The pistons fire right away without me pressing anything, and when I press the button programmed to have them fire, there is just clicking noise.
I am now curious about what you are using pneumatic for
Without seeing your hardware, it sounds like a “plumbing” issue. If you are using double acting pneumatic cylinders, they can be actuated either direction. The “clicking” is the solenoid valve. Typically in pneumatic systems, when the system is first pressurized, you want to do so in a direction that retracts the air cylinder, so nothing moves on pressurization, then actuate (fire) the air cylinder after the system is pressurized. Check the pneumatics documention from VEX, and perhaps this paper will help as well: pneumatics information.pdf (312.6 KB)
One of the most common issues is that you might have used the exhaust flow control valve on your pneumatic cylinders, and the valve might be closed. Typically these flow controls are not needed, but if you don’t have a fitting to substitute, then make sure the valve is open (unscrew the valve counter-clockwise).
1 Like
We are creating a soccer robot, the pneumatics are used to fire and hit the ball.
3 Likes