My school’s teams have been having problems with the ports randomly stopping working. We think it is because the cortex sends more energy then the brain can handle killing the port. None of us really know how to code in pros so we are using V5 Blocks. Is there anyway we can fix this in the blocks or some code we could use that is easy to understand and change to our needs? Thanks Speedway
If ports are burning out then there is no programming solution buT before we jump to Port burnouts have you tried the same motor and cable in another port or a different motor or different cable.
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Yes we have and the motor and cable work perfectly fine we know it is the port.
sometimes it just happens. I’m not sure why it happens, but one of my teams killed ~4 ports in a week just driving for practice, and there’s nothing much you can do to fix them =(
Dang okay I will keep researching for fixes.
I’m not sure if there is a fix that is legal, so if you aren’t a god at electrical engineering I don’t think its worth perusing. Just use the 20 other ports.
You can try using an anti-static spray on the field.
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Just to make sure I understand you mean like WD-40?
no, no, do not do that.
they make specialized anti static spray.
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Nah, use something like Static Guard
Glad I asked then. Okay thanks. I will try that when I get back after the weekend.
we lost several ports on two robots in the last month. Both 'bots the firmware is updated, used factory (VEX) cables and motor were subject to heavy loads:
1 - intake on a tray-bot w/36:1 gearbox
2 - DR4B got ‘jammed’ during match despite motor.timeout of 3s (36:1 also)
I doubt static has anything to do w/this and was hoping someone has a more fool-proof way of protecting the Brain ports.
I know VEX has made great strides in protecting motor drivers but clearly we’re doing something wrong…
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From what I’ve heard and seen, spacing out the ports which you are using helps. When you have multiple adjacent ports in use at once, that can lead fry the ports. Maybe try leaving one empty port between each one you’re using (i.e. if ports 1, 3, 5, and 7 are drawing power, leave 2, 4, and 6 are empty).
Hope this helps. : ) Burnt out ports suck.
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LOL - thanks & yes - we deliberately space the ports as far apart as possible for this reason. Lessons learned from the Cortex!
Hard to believe this is an issue seeing each port appears to have protection built-in.
I’m confident VEX engineered these well - just suspect it’s something on our part.
We set motor.maxTorque for 90% to try and prevent burn-out. I know 80% is universally accepted as safest - maybe we’ll reluctantly try this and see…
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Out of curiosity, how high is your V5 Brain from the ground?
the V5 brain electical is great
From what i can tell it has 4 quadrants with 5 ports each
In order to not fry our brain my team spreads out the ports to all of the quadrants
when we fill one quadrant say with intake and drivetrain the 2 power hungry systems we overload
when we split it up we manage not to overload
correct me if i am wrong but i believe the solution is 2-3 connections per quadrant will keep the brains working
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it is tucked well-inside the chassis - I would suspect about 2". Has steel on 5 sides - almost like a Faraday cage.
I know this doesn’t prevent the cables from picking up static but honestly these ports died when there wasn’t much movement. Plus being in the south the humidity is still pretty high and seldom experience ‘winter-induced’ static - esp this early in the season
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Thanks - we suspected this was like the Cortex and did this - I have to look closely but it looks like individual ports are dying
FWIW - we only have 5 motors
It is about three - four inches
I have 8 ports burned out in our V5 and it sucks because we want to get a replacement, but we don’t have hope that we will be able to get it before the competition is over.