Re: Things You Shouldn't Do
 

Never, ever drill a hole in a block of wood unless it is clamped down. Our team captain lost a large part of her finger this way. ::safety::

Re: Things You Shouldn't Do
 

Last year we were cutting a piece of plywood on a table saw. The newly cut piece of wood got lodged between the saw blade and the sliding guide and shot 20ft clear across the shop making a large hold in the wall.

Re: Things You Shouldn't Do
 

Lexan + same set-up + me standong there = Ouch

Re: Things You Shouldn't Do
 

Make sure everything on the CNC work tray is clamped down or the material will spin on the bit at approximately 2500 RPM until the bit breaks.

Re: Things You Shouldn't Do
 

That's called kickback, and it's one reason why the table saw is probably the most dangerous tool in your shop. Please be careful!

Re: Things You Shouldn't Do
 

Don't use bad PWMs. Also, don't connect PWMs backwards.

Re: Things You Shouldn't Do
 

never trust the robot when its on
we lost connection with it and it went after the whole team
robot+lose connection=sprang ankle and no more camera turret :(
don't forget when your working on it to put it on blocks......::ouch::

Re: Things You Shouldn't Do
 

Neophyte team member sent to deburr a hole in a plate... 30 seconds later, we hear a loud sound and I spend the next 30 minutes extricating said plate from deep within the belt sander...

Re: Things You Shouldn't Do
 

DO NOT! go up to your team's CAD computer and decide it would be funny to mess around with the design. While fixable with 'undo' or 'ctrl z', it is really annoying and not remotely funny. One time a rookie even accidentally caused the computer to freeze up, making me have to re-CAD everything I had been working on

Do: Constantly save your CAD drawings

Re: Things You Shouldn't Do
 

This happened to us a week ago. If you need to drill holes in a plate, and the holes are right above an encoder, NEVER EVER drill them without removing the plate!!!

That encoder took too long to replace :(

Re: Things You Shouldn't Do
 

Do not try to see if the battery fits and accidentily touch the battery terminals to the frame causing sparks and the unfortunate nickname of Sparky.

Also do not forget to put the tailgate up on the truck you are hauling the robot in. You will make a turn and the robot will fall out on the highway.

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Do: Insulate your batteries the INSTANT you get them. I thought everybody did that...

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We had a 2-cim shooter setup, and wired the positive wires from each motor to one jaguar, and the negative wires to another! Thankfully, the jags survived and seem to have avoided any damage.

Re: Things You Shouldn't Do
 

We actually did a similar thing, putting power into both sides of a Jaguar, and found that it was unresponsive afterward.

Re: Things You Shouldn't Do
 

Don't wire motors directly into the power distribution board and turn the robot on.