Hey everyone,
For the past three years, our team has consistently have had motor disconnections (motors that are plugged in stop showing red and either blink or most of the times just show no light). We have identified the issue as sometimes a faulty wire, sometimes a faulty motor, and sometimes a faulty brain port.
Recently, we ordered brand new motors and brand new wires (pre-made from VEX). Connecting them to a brain that was ordered in late 2022, we noticed that some connections weren’t consistent (again, the motor wouldn’t be consistently red). The solution our team has found has been to tape the wires down on the brain. The below picture was our bot wiring, notice the blue tape that tapes the wires down, pressing against the brain screen.
This solution, while it works decently, is not a permanent one. I’ve read the majority of posts about this issue and the general consensus I’ve seen is this happens due to electric static shocking/frying of the brain ports. I’ve yet to see this confirmed by VEX, but that’s what I’m seeing. I can definitely attest that touching the robot definitely often gives me a little shock of static electricity. My team assumed that this only happens over time and thus would be fixed if we used a newer brain.
However, a brain that was bought in late 2022 is experiencing the same issues (at a smaller degree than older brains, but still significant). So my question is this:
**Is there a consistent way to prevent or slow down V5 brain ports from frying? Or are teams expected to buy a new brain each season? **
Thank you for your help, if you need any more details, feel free to let me know!
If this solves the disconnection issues. Then I don’t think you have brain or motor smartports damaged by ESD. It’s far more likely the pins of the connectors (on the brain) have been bent in some way.
That’s interesting. I have also noticed that our field is (most likely) using the old foam tiles, not the anti-static ones, and no anti-static spray (but that’s irrelevant if it’s not ESD). If it is bent pins, would they be noticeable with the naked eye? If we can identify it as broken pins can we either a) fix them or b) at least figure out what can we do to prevent it from happening in the future?
If your pins are bent in, look at this post to see how you might be able to fix them.
I’ve been able to bring back a ton of ports that were previously flaky by bending the pins back up. I have paper clip that I’ve bent into a shape that is advantageous for this specific use case and it works great. I’ll try to grab a picture when I’m next in the lab.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!! You both are lifesavers. Almost all of our brain ports had prongs bent down. A simple paperclip that I bent worked perfectly. We were able to fix all of our ports on our 1 year old brain and, except for one outlier, which had 11 unfixable ports, we were able to fix all but 2-4 ports on our 3+ year old brains. These data are more consistent with the eventual ESD damage that other teams are reporting (2-4 ports on many-year old brains).
Our states was the first competition in 3 seasons that we did not have any motor disconnections in the middle of a match! I can’t reiterate how grateful my team and I are for both of your help.
For other teams that come to this post for an answer, I’ll summarize the points made above with my own process.
If a port can have a motor show red if forced in a certain damage, it is most likely NOT ESD DAMAGE and instead bent prongs which CAN BE FIXED.
Visually compare the metal prongs of a port that works with a port that doesn’t. For our team, we used brain port 21 as a point of comparison as we have never seen that port have issues. You are looking for the metal prongs on the bad port to be pushed down and not bent up. The metal prongs SHOULD BE BENT UP. Even if you can’t visually see it, you might want to try the fix regardless.
SAFETY: Make sure your battery is disconnected, as in fully unplugged not just having the brain off.
Take a regular paperclip (not an abnormally thick one, thinner the better).
Bend it so most of it is a straight line.
Then bend a really small part of the end at a 90 degree angle. The angled part at the end should be no longer than half of the width of the brain port. I suggest using a vise or pliers to make such a small bend.
Making sure the BATTERY IS DISCONNECTED, gently fiddle the bent end of the paperclip on one of the sides of the prongs and try to get the paper clip under ALL of the prongs.
Once the bent part of the paperclip is under ALL of the prongs, gently lift/bend them back up. You don’t want to be to quick or rough as you risk snapping the prongs.
Don’t bend them up too much, but if you bend them up a little much it’s fine as plugging in a wire will fix it.
After no one is touching the prongs, plug your battery back in and turn on the brain. Use a wire and motor that is known to not have issue to test the fixed port. The wire may struggle to click in (as most likely you would have bent the prongs a bit too much), but it is safe to force the wire in (not too much force, if you absolutely can’t get it in, bend the prongs a bit back, again making sure the battery is disconnected). Once the wire is in, the motor should be solid red regardless of the wire having to be held in a specific position. Also the wire should no longer have to be forced in, it should go in and out smoothly after the initial time.
If this doesn’t work and you know that the wire and motor you are testing with are consistent, you most likely have an ESD (electro-static discharge) damaged port. As per details above, it is normal for older brains (couple of years) to have 2-4 ESD damaged ports which can’t be fixed (per VEX 2023-2024 Game Manual R14 and without extensive knowledge of soldering).
I hope this helps future teams struggling with motor disconnections and wanted to say one more thanks to jpearman and sazrocks for their advice and solving our team’s port issues. I’ll be marking this post as the answer as I detailed the process most extensively, but all credit goes to those people for telling me how to fix the ports (I just summarized).
