Minibot fuse

[Free Willy]

We have been have been having some trouble powering our minibot because we keep blowing the fuse on the battery. We have 2 motors connected in parallel to the tetrix battery pack. Has anyone else been having similar problems? How do you suggest fixing it?

[theschell]

Free willy,

We have had that problem once. That was due to our motor releasing magic smoke. So we burned the motors and the fuse.

[Trent B]

If you are stalling out the motors you may be getting close enough to blow the fuse. Also make sure you don't have any shorts causing too much current to flow through.

Another option would be to buy the thermally protected tetrix wires which have a auto reseting device in them, ideally your motor would stop before your main fuse blew.

[vamfun]

We tried to protect the motors by lowering the battery fuse from 20 to 7.5 amps. Today we smoked a motor (but it still works) and didn't blow the fuse. The minibot got up the pole in 2.6 sec but not sure if the motor is 100%. We have the Tetrix PTC but the spec is 2.5 amps at .4 sec as I recall so we thought it wouldn't deliver the optimum current since we are designed to work at peak power which requires ~3.75 amps.

Maybe we will try the PTC afterall.

[vamfun]

Update: Well, we did blow the 7.5 amp fuse today when the limit sw failed to shut off the motors. We got smoke again on two more motors....ouch!!! There went the spares. So... maybe 5 amp fuse?? Looking at the Littlefuse time to blow curves, it will probably blow half the time, just when you need it. Probably need a 6 amp fuse which I don't think anyone makes ... at least for standard auto blades.

[swwrobotics]

Our team blew a fuse when trying to charge the battery. Anyone having trouble like that?