I successfully seeded 3 hectars of corn today with autosteer (first try), when all of the sudden the motor stopped turning.
I just tried connecting the Cytron directly to 12V and pushed the MA and MB buttons, but the motor (phidgets) didn’t move at all. The Cytron’s PWR led is on.
What’s wrong here, and how can I analyze or fix it?
Some minutes before, I was steering a bit manually with autosteer activated, could that have damaged something?
Thanks for your support!
I had a Phidgets motor with a similar sounding problem. I could hear a whine in the motor but it didn’t turn. I thought it was the Cytron too, but I tried a new one and it was the same. When I looked closer I discovered that the encoder shaft was spinning so the motor was actually turning. I took apart the gearbox on the motor and found that the sun gear hadn’t been properly attached to the motor shaft. The key wasn’t in, but luckily it was laying in there. The motor had just been driving with the grip of the set screw. I put it together right and it works perfectly.
Did the LED’s on the cytron lite up when you pressed the MA & MB?
check for voltage with a meter with the motor unplugged.
Powered the motor directly: turns
Powered the Cytron: PWR led on
Pressed the MA and MB buttons: nothing happens (MA and MB leds off, no voltage on output connectors)
This leaves me with a few questions:
Does this mean that my Cytron is bricked?
Any ideas what to do (except ordering another one, plus a spare one)?
And any idea how to prevent this from happening again? (adding a fuse somewhere, etc)
Sp, after waiting for what felt an eternity for my Cytron to arrive, I can confirm that it was bricked - the new one works like a charm.
After some pokimg around with the multimeter, it seems like the chip itself is dead.
@smitter,
I haven’t been able to get autosteer to work yet because I am having a similar issue with the cytron. I am getting no power on the MA or MB wires when manually telling the board to steer left or right. the board has power, but no other activity. how do I test the board other than replacing with a new cytron?
Do you have the free wheel mod on your Cytron? If yes, then you have to enable the Cytron chips with pwm2 from the PCB.
My board has the free wheel mod, but there is no wire coming from PWM2 to the Cytron. Where does the wire hook up to enable the chips?
There’s a difference between the free wheel mod “fix” on the AiO v2.5 PCB and the actual free wheel mod on the Cytron.
PWM2 on AiO goes to Cytron NC pin (red on 4 conductor wire) with a jumper on the Cytron from NC to where you removed the diode and resistor or PWM2 goes directly to the Cytron PCB.
I also have a current sensor. ACS 712 I think.
I don’t have a picture handy of the alternative pad that works but you can check for continuity between yours and the pad I used in my picture.
