re - How much current does a Soleniod Driver Cable use?

[jpearman]

I am thinking about using my Vex pneumatics kits on a non Vex robot and I wanted to know how much current a Solenoid Driver Cable draws from a i/o pin?

Hi Allen

The control signal need very little current, there is a 1k series resistor on the cortex so probably less than 1mA, you should be able to drive it from most micro controllers. The solenoid itself needs about 100mA @ 5V. See the first two posts in this thread for details on how the cortex drives the solenoid.

https://vexforum.com/showthread.php?p=347076

[snowpenguin]

On a related note, do you know about how much current the solenoid itself draws off the power line, jpearman?

[jpearman]

On a related note, do you know about how much current the solenoid itself draws off the power line, jpearman?

100mA @5V, didn’t I say that in the first post So in terms of battery current that would be approximately 70mA.

[snowpenguin]

Oh, I must have missed it haha.

I asked because we had 4 of them running off of one y cable about 15 feet from the cortex and it worked :3

Thanks!

[vexbot]

Hi Allen

The control signal need very little current, there is a 1k series resistor on the cortex so probably less than 1mA, you should be able to drive it from most micro controllers. The solenoid itself needs about 100mA @ 5V. See the first two posts in this thread for details on how the cortex drives the solenoid.

https://vexforum.com/showthread.php?p=347076

Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it. I’m sorry it took me a few days to say so.

I figured that they probably didn’t need very much current, but I just wanted to make sure. Now I need to add a 500mA 5V power supply for the solenoids. The 5V supply on the I/O board can only supply 80 - 100mA max. It was just meant to power a few LEDs, sensors, and a piezo speaker.