I am running a summer camp with 8 robot kits. The brains are used as V5 Competition brains throughout the competition season and the controllers and radios are only used for camps/workshops. I cannot get the controller to pair with the brains for 6 of the kits. I didn’t experience any problems connecting the other 2 kits.
There is a possibility that either cable which you used or ports on brains or controllers might be bad.
First, I would check that there are no debris and no bad pins in any of the ports both on controllers and brains.
Then, I would try to use cables that you already know to work with different ports on the brain. Those ports sometimes burn out due to the static electricity during VRC season and it is not uncommon for V5 brains to end up with half of the ports non-functioning.
Finally, you could try to pair controller that is known to be able to pair with brains in question (and vice versa) to diagnose one item at a time.
I was able to connect all the brains to a controller by plugging into port 21 with the controller first and then the radio. For some reason, I can’t get any of my motors (tried over a dozen) to stay a solid red when plugged into any ports of any of the brains. They either blink red or don’t blink at all. I highly doubt I have dozens of bad motors, ports, and cables.
I have tried taking one of the robots (which has a VEXnet connection between the brain and controller) and plugging it into a port of a V5 brain running the competition match software. Every port on the competition match software brain is recognizing and connecting to the robot, but when I try just a motor outside of the competition software, none of the ports seem to work.
Make sure that when you configure the V5 Brain for VEXnet to also configure the Controller for VEXnet. If the controller is configured for Bluetooth while the V5 Brain is configured for VEXnet they will not recognize each other because of different bandwidths.
Perhaps you have run the Field Control program (the one used to make a V5 Brain into a field controller). This will disable all the motor ports except 21. When you connect a controller the V5 Brain when it is running the Field Control program on ports 1-20, it will not pair. Port 21 is still available. Ports 1-20 are also disabled for V5 Motors.
What you can do to check is go into Devices and if the program was run, all the motor ports will appear as if the port is in use … You can reset this by going to the Setup menu on the V5 Brain and do a reset of the Brain. Select your preferred language and all should be good.
Thank you very much! Resetting all the V5 brains (which had been used as smart field controllers during the competition season) solved the problem. All motors are showing a solid red light when connected and now appear under the brain’s devices.