Re: PNTA Team 23 control system
 

Don't think I don't remember you...:ahh:
I have a picture of that side of your robot that I show to people...:)

Re: PNTA Team 23 control system
 

http://vcclite.com/led-light-pipes/f...e-light-pipes/

Run a fiber optic light pipe from each status LED to the outside of the case, properly labeling each one. I have no idea if that will work or is legal and I don't really care to check or ask. Would be pretty cool though.

C'mon inspectors - don't be meanies. ;)

Re: PNTA Team 23 control system
 

Al - I do appreciate your points and helping me rethink everything so there's not a mad dash to make our bot legal come inspection.

Last year, we mounted our router on the rear corner of our robot, and it just so happened that the status lights were facing a 1" wood strip, with about 1/4" distance between the router status lights and the wood. I've angled the router upward in a way to allow for maximum visibility, and the hole is considerably larger than the status lights. I can't capture this in image, but I would imagine you would agree. Every individual light is 100% visible and unobstructed.

As for the wire inspection, I'm aware that inspectors need to visually inspect all of the wiring. We're going to design the placement of the case so that we can simply open the cover to work on components or go through inspection. All the wires and sources are visible and easily traceable.

Jon - We certainly know the vics can pull their own weight! I've made sure that I maximized the height between the bottom vic and the top vic as much as I could. At most, there's 1/2", and it seems to be working just fine, no heat issues whatsoever.

Travis - I thought about this and bounced the idea off of a teammate. In the end I decided against running fibre optics because my teammate and I agreed that it would be hit or miss during inspection. I believe the way I've mounted the router is sufficient for inspection as well as play. If we ever run into a problem with the visibility of the status lights - which we doubt - it wouldn't be too much of a hassle to remount the router onto the top of the case.

Again, I appreciate everyone's constructive criticism. It's going to help!

Dom

Re: PNTA Team 23 control system
 

I've left the case at our school till Friday. When I pick it back up then, I'll take more detailed and relevant pictures, specifically one detailing the router mounting situation and the wiring. The pictures I've got up are pretty lousy.

Re: PNTA Team 23 control system
 

"And this is how NOT to cover an electronics panel."

Re: PNTA Team 23 control system
 

Dom,
It sounds like you are thinking about everything and that is good. I don't have a DAP1522 handy but isn't there a few LEDs on one side? Or am I thinking about a different box? Someone should have asked, how heavy is the box when empty? We rarely have enough surplus weight.

Re: PNTA Team 23 control system
 

To fix the visibility, have you thought about cutting most of the lid away and replacing it with lexan? So instead of having a small access window you can look down through most of the top to have all lights visible. Like this.

As a system that houses a complete electronics package I think it is a great idea. A package like yours would be amazing to have during the build season to test prototypes and such.

However, as a competition robot package I wonder how beneficial it would be. Visibility aside, how easy is it to replace one or several of the bottom victors? If you need more than 8 motor controllers do you put them on the top of the box? ;)

For competition usage or not, I love this concept! Nice work!

Re: PNTA Team 23 control system
 

Al - I believe you're thinking about some other box. The DAP only has LED's on the front face. When empty, the case weighs in at around 5lbs. This is one of the cons of this system, which might prove it's great in certain environments but not fully suited for competition use. When push comes to shove, we might have to relegate this control system to other projects if we can't make the added weight work.

Brendan - The router is positioned up against a downward curve in the front of the lid. I've cut away a good portion of this curve to open up a window a bit larger than the front plane of the router to be visible. Replacing the top of the lid with lexan/poly would not help the visibility of the router status lights, as I cannot replace the curved portion of the lid with a transparent material without ruining the integrity of the lid.

Replacing a bottom victor is a bit challenging, but not impossible during downtime in the pit. One would have to liberate the top and bottom of their four connections each, snip a zip tie securing the victors from swaying (attached to an erector set piece), and unscrew two large screws stacking the vics on top of each other. Replace and play again in reverse. A pain in the butt yes, but not impossible.

I've left room for additional components such as a second sidecar and a few spikes. If we absolutely needed more motor controllers, the best solution I can see would be passing +12v from the PD out to a controller mounted on the robot. It's easier to pass 2-4 wires out of the case than mounting a 9th and 10th vic inside.

Like I said, this package might not prove to be the best idea during competition. But, it'll prove to be a valuable tool for prototyping code and robots, teaching the control system and programming methods, as well as serving as a quickly swappable control system that requires very little modification of the robot to become compatible.

Dom

Re: PNTA Team 23 control system
 

Dom,
It might be the new version.

Re: PNTA Team 23 control system
 

Ah right, there's going to be a new router version. Has FIRST released any information on the new router hardware? If worst comes to worst, we'll mount the router on top of the case.

Re: PNTA Team 23 control system
 

Dom,
I am speaking of the "B" version of the DAP1522 that is now available. There is no change coming that I am aware of.

Re: PNTA Team 23 control system
 

Al, do you have any information if/when these will be implemented?

Re: PNTA Team 23 control system
 

Remember that we have already gone through one radio model and one current model production change. I would guess that changes beyond our control will drive the next change in robot radio. The new control system discussions keep an open mind as to what we might be using in the future. Please keep in mind that FRC is in a growth cycle and it won't take much crystal ball gazing to guess where we might be in 3-5 years in terms of teams and their needs.