This is my first year running VEX and I continue to run into issues where robots will just spin a motor randomly. We have about a dozen simple clawbots and this has happened intermittently with at least 5. We are using the built in driver controls so it shouldn’t be a code issue. I have switched brains, motors, cables, controllers, all sorts of things. Sometimes it fixes it temporaily but usually not. Is there something I am missing?
What it generally looks like: start drive program and the robot drives in a circle (one motor running and one not) even though no one is touching controls.
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I have this problem as well. Usually just turning the robot off and on (taking out the battery and putting it back in) usually works. I have also had issues with a Ben Lipper bot where the arm just stops lifting even if the day before it was fine. This was always solved by replacing the battery with one that is more charged. Sorry that I couldn’t offer a more helpful suggestion
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While it isn’t a full solution I appreciate knowing that I’m not the only one. Knowing that I can tell my kids to just turn it off and on instead of trying to troubleshoot every piece for 30 minutes is most certainly helpful! It is dissapointing that such an expensive product has such a major issue though. Hopefully there are some others who have some additional ideas.
can you provide more details. Is this a generation 1 or 2 brain ? Does the motor start spinning only when the drive program is running ? The same motor each time or any of the motors ? Is firmware on the brain fully up to date ? (for gen 2 latest is 1.0.8)
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The robots are Gen 2. I just went through every robot and firmware was all up to date (brain and controller). The motor spins when the drive program is running. I have not tested with alternate code. I have had some luck with changing the drive controls (from arcade to tank for instance) but then it seems to start again after a while, similar to power cycling several times. For the one group that has come to me regularly with details it is always the same motor. I have also had a robot where one motor just won’t work occassionally (opposite issue). I will have groups start to document specific steps they take to fix it to see if I can find any additional patterns.
Is there a known issue with controller drift similar to the issues with the Nintendo Switch? That was one thought that I had but set aside since it continued with more than one controller.