New Power Distribution

[jsmith234]

[B]What is your opinion as to the new power distribution pieces compared to previous methods of wiring?

[NeedMoreEngines]

we DISLIKE IT WITH A PASSION. we'd always buy one large breaker box that held the 40s and 30s (or maybe 20s?) on one convenient panel. it was great because it was compact, clean, and LIGHT. this year we're bummed because we have to use the KOP stuff - especially that gold plated 40 amp box. it's such a waste of weight.

I think those power distributors are nifty but they take up too much space. it's a cool system and I like the design, but it's just another thing that's replacing something that worked fine.

[whytheheckme]

Agreed. I ranted about this at the beginning of the build season. Look at my picture of my board because of it.



Jacob

[Stephen Kowski]

Look at my picture of my board because of it.

i believe that you can improve that significantly with a little bit more time even though you are upset by the work the power distro block has caused you. I can assure you that even though it is a minor inconvenience teams will come up with a clean, safe, and effective way to work around this (go find a picture of the block in 2004, that was fun to work with). I hope that you do not use the block as a scapegoat, but rather as a challenge that needs to be met.

[Alex.Norton]

Personally I don't like the set up. I much perfered the single breaker panel, however, if the problem that we had with it happened often then I can see why they got rid of it.

This year we were having problems with the cords going to our camera arcing, lukily this didn't hurt the camera. We traced the problem to the breaker panel were it was shorting the positive from the battery to the frame which then traveled to the camera mount, through the screws holding the camera board and back to the batteries through the wires that control the camera. If this shorting happened a lot then I can see why they got rid of the breaker panel.

Also, if you thought that 2004 was bad then 2003 would have caused you to cringe :)

[AdamHeard]

Personally I don't like the set up. I much perfered the single breaker panel, however, if the problem that we had with it happened often then I can see why they got rid of it.

This year we were having problems with the cords going to our camera arcing, lukily this didn't hurt the camera. We traced the problem to the breaker panel were it was shorting the positive from the battery to the frame which then traveled to the camera mount, through the screws holding the camera board and back to the batteries through the wires that control the camera. If this shorting happened a lot then I can see why they got rid of the breaker panel.

Also, if you thought that 2004 was bad then 2003 would have caused you to cringe :)

We had this same problem!!! We mounted some of our victors with metal screws and one screw for a + wire was slightly loose causing it to hit the screw and charge our entire frame.

[teddybear]

I'm still learning all the aspects of mechanical engineering, so this is still all new to me. I doing my best and listening to all of our engineers. It is very exciting.