Intergrated Encoder Failure

VEX V5 General Discussion Technical Discussion
1

Recently with my team at school, we were at a skirmish with some other teams, and most of us noticed our integrated encoders were red or yellow. Now we have gotten back to working on autonomous and all three integrated encoders( both back right, back left, and the arm encoder) have resulted to remaining yellow. We have tried:

1.Taking the wires and switching them:wires are not bad.
2.Swapping cortexes with the same IMEs:same result.
3. Using IMEs from another teams robot: The cortex is not bad.
Could it be that 4 IMEs have failed at the same time? And is there a way to fix the yellow light?
My motor config code:

#pragma config(UART_Usage, UART2, uartNotUsed, baudRate4800, IOPins, None, None)
#pragma config(I2C_Usage, I2C1, i2cSensors)
#pragma config(Sensor, dgtl4,  Solenoid2,      sensorDigitalOut)
#pragma config(Sensor, dgtl5,  Solenoid1,      sensorDigitalOut)
#pragma config(Sensor, dgtl9,  switch1,        sensorTouch)
#pragma config(Sensor, dgtl10, switch2,        sensorTouch)
#pragma config(Sensor, dgtl11, switch3,        sensorTouch)
#pragma config(Sensor, dgtl12, buddyswitch,    sensorTouch)
#pragma config(Sensor, I2C_1,  backleft,       sensorQuadEncoderOnI2CPort,    , AutoAssign)
#pragma config(Sensor, I2C_2,  backright,      sensorQuadEncoderOnI2CPort,    , AutoAssign)
#pragma config(Sensor, I2C_3,  armencoder,     sensorQuadEncoderOnI2CPort,    , AutoAssign)
#pragma config(Motor,  port1,           leftintake,    tmotorVex393, openLoop)
#pragma config(Motor,  port2,           backright,     tmotorVex393, openLoop, reversed, encoder, encoderPort, I2C_2, 1000)
#pragma config(Motor,  port3,           backleft,      tmotorVex393, openLoop, encoder, encoderPort, I2C_1, 1000)
#pragma config(Motor,  port4,           armleft1,      tmotorVex393, openLoop, reversed)
#pragma config(Motor,  port5,           armright1,     tmotorVex393, openLoop)
#pragma config(Motor,  port6,           armright2,     tmotorVex393, openLoop, reversed)
#pragma config(Motor,  port7,           armleft2,      tmotorVex393, openLoop, encoder, encoderPort, I2C_3, 1000)
#pragma config(Motor,  port8,           frontright,    tmotorVex393, openLoop, reversed)
#pragma config(Motor,  port9,           frontleft,     tmotorVex393, openLoop)
#pragma config(Motor,  port10,          rightintake,   tmotorVex393, openLoop, reversed)

Normal operation is not affected, but autonomous is destroyed without the encoders.

2

Also, Could someone move this to the unofficial answers thread?

3

It would seem unlikely, have you tested the IMEs individually using a known good cable?

4

I am on the same team so I can help with information.
Yes we tested it with a known good cable, and we only have 3 IME s on our robot so 4 is a mistype.
We borrowed an IME from our B team and it was green with our cable and cortex, then we plug it into our IME and it is yellow, we are not sure why :frowning:
I got this from another forum post **Yellow (same as Green patterns) - counter overflow **. I have no idea what “counter overflow” means, maybe you could help us out? That would be great!

Thanks for your help in advance!!

5

https://vexforum.com/showthread.php?p=255691

Read this page carefully and show this to your programmer he should translate it for you ;). This is a link to the specs of the IMEs. It may help. Also since you were on my team last year I will come to the high school one of these days to look at it myself. :smiley:

6

We’ve had a few robots go through some IME debug hell.

  1. Check the wires for nicks that cause shorts - especially look where you go around corners or the bump smashes into the wire against a piece of metal. But you have tried different wires so maybe maybe not.

  2. Try one IME at a time individually. If the first one is having issues, the rest will probably not communicate well down the daisy chain. We ended up not using one IME on a robot due to what seems to be permanent damage.

  3. Wipe off the IME board and gears inside. This helped where counts were off a bit once but not on a connection problem. Grease I guess was causing the white or black to not register right.

  4. Re-seat the connection into the IME port on the cortex. This helped once. It looked like it was in but I guess it was not in right.

  5. Look for bent pins on the IME out male pins (#2 will uncover the bad IME before this most likely)

  6. Look at the circuit board for anything dangling down that might be causing a short or connection to the motor. (unlikely, but give it a look over)

  7. You shorted them all out permanently via static discharge/lightning. (Unlikely but when all other possibilities are exhausted) Buy new IME’s.

7

We fixed the problem. After Virginia states the two encoders we had before we changed the robot were melted. We noticed at the competition the robot was stalling after a couple hours of use and the encoders stopped working so well. Both circuit boards are now white with melted stuff. The third one was shorted by the rest of the encoders. We got two knew ones yesterday and they blinked green the moment they turned on.