Team 804 Electronics (completeness)

[scifi3018]

First is the Board in the clean, tidy state (read: not hooked up) acually taken after todays work... but you dont know that
For some explanation, starting top right, clockwise is: 2 Spike Modules, 2 PWMs, CPU, Power Swith, Empty Space, 2 PWMs, 2 more Spikes, Breaker Board, The 2 wires going off the top are the 12v battery, and the 7.2 volt backup Battery respectivley
http://img239.exs.cx/img239/4608/BoardClean.th.jpg (http://img239.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img239&image=BoardClean.jpg)

Next (acually before last (if you understand my logic, raise a hand)) is the board hooked up and in use
http://img239.exs.cx/img239/7825/Boardinuse2.th.jpg (http://img239.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img239&image=Boardinuse2.jpg)

Another
http://img239.exs.cx/img239/5148/Boardinuse.jpg

A pic of the Wiring Job, all wires come out from the Breaker Board, then go under it to the center, than out to werever needed

A small control switch panel with (left to right) 3 switches to select what progrma to turn on the robot, remote reset/power butotn, remote program button
http://img239.exs.cx/img239/9885/SwitchPanel.jpg

Next is some cool stuff, the camera that we have tested its color trakcing, i made the case, doest it look sexy?
http://img239.exs.cx/img239/7326/CMUcam.jpg

And now last but not least, the modding part...
http://img239.exs.cx/img239/6364/PlexiEdge.jpg
What i want to do is drill 5mm holes and put some leds into them to iluminate them, i have 2 3000mcd red LEDs, is this enough to get decent lighitng around the edge if i have one on front, back? also how can i finish the edge of the board to be polished, will that make the leds more effective?

Any opinions, comments, questions, help is grealty appreciated

[sanddrag]

You can polish the edge of the board by "flaming" it with a propane torch. Be careful to do it lightly because you do not want to deform or burn the plastic. Try a test piece first. I have no idea if this will make the LEDs look good or not, but that is how to get rid of the rough cuts.

[D.J. Fluck]

Overall it looks good, very organized and it looks like all your major parts are very easy to get to...


Couple of things to consider...

I'm not sure if this is a rule or not (maybe it was at one time...but this is just something the team i used to be on did) but i always wrapped the outside of the victor fan with a layer or two of electrical tape (with the wires underneath the tape)...basically the purpose of that is to protect and hold the victor fan wires in place and keep them protected from say hands getting in there or accidental robot entanglement...maybe I'm just overprotective...but then again I never liked screwing around when it came to an expensive part...especially ones that retail for 114.95...

the other thing is that I generally like to use as little of the 6 gauge wire as possible....less voltage drop across the wire (although it might not even be an issue for you guys..just something to consider)

other then that it looks really good (from what i can tell)

[scifi3018]

Thanks i might try to "flame the board" to see how it works, i only added ~12" to the power cable though, so I'm not to worried about voltage drops.

and heres a question. I have 2 1.7v 20ma 3000mcd red LEDs, and 2 510ohm resistor, i used a resistor calculator to find out what resistor i should use and it said to use a 515 ohm resistor with 12v, will the LEDs work with 1 510ohm resistor on each, wired in parallel with 20a?

[663.keith]

it looks good and overall organized. I was wondering how you created the remote program and reset buttons. My team would like to do this but we weren't sure how to go about doing it.

[scifi3018]

the remote reset/program buttons are EASY serioulsy, on the cpu, there is a pin header above the ttl4 pin port, and it reads reset/progam or vica versa...

you need a pwm cable, and 2 momentary buttons, or a momentary spdt switch and i believe, although you might want to check on this...

yeah it is red/black is program and white/black is reset and thats it, mabye takes 5 min or so, i spent longer making the switch mount than the wiring