Rookie Help
 

Hey!
So I'm on the electronics side of our robot, and we don't know anything at all about electronics or how to wire or how to set things up...basically nothing. Can anyone offer some basic information to help us get started on the right track?
Thanks. :D

Re: Rookie Help
 

There are a lot of resources at the FIRST site. For example:
http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...rts-electrical

Trying reading some of these documents to familiarize yourself with different components of the robot and how they interconnect. If you still have questions, ask in this forum.

Re: Rookie Help
 

This should help you:
http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default...20System_2.pdf

Id recommend putting together some sort of test board to practice wiring since you've never done it before, before you have to do it for real on your competition robot. If you want to set up a board, send me/us a pic and Id be happy to check over all of your connections for you (As well as others on the forums here)

Re: Rookie Help
 

Re: Rookie Help
 

I second Griffin's advice. If you have the funds, purchase another cRIO system as well, both for the practice of wiring the system and for off-robot development/testing. I have personally found Team 358's website to be of particular use in terms of references (http://www.team358.org/files/electrical/). If you click on "Layouts", 358 has the good old posters that detail all of the wiring (I'm not sure where to get them now, or even if FIRST still gives these out).

One thing I would suggest is to print out all of the documentation and instructions (and personal notes that you may have when wiring) for the control system, cRIO, PDB, etc. and put them all in a binder and label it "Control System Bible". The name should say it all...

Re: Rookie Help
 

Take a look at this:
http://wpilib.screenstepslive.com/s/3120/m/8559

Re: Rookie Help
 

Also, if you search on CD "DFTF", which is looking for a series of threads that were to get Dr. Joe Johnson back up to speed, they make for a great read for any rookies to get themselves some knowledge fast.

Re: Rookie Help
 

I'd suggest you try to hook up with someone at 772 at Sandwich Secondary School. They're in Windsor as well. They may already be mentoring your team. Failing that, find a team across the river.

Re: Rookie Help
 

Plus they likely have sandwiches....:rolleyes:

Those diagrams referenced above explian how to connect things - this gets wired to that, etc.

Some other things you should know:

Wire: try to get type MTW wire for your wiring. This is the kind of wire you'll find in cars or small appliances. It must be stranded, but the kind they use for industrial wiring such as THHN and is really a little too stiff for convenience. If that's all that's available though, it's not too bad. Hey local electrical supply house will have good wire at reasonable prices, maybe they'll even donate some if you explain that you're on a robotics team. Stay away from places like Walmart and discount stores that don't really sell wire for a living, that wire is junk.

Wiring the CIM (drivetrain) motors: use number 10 wire to go from the power distribution board to the motor controller, and from the motor controller to the motor itself. Try to use roughly equal lengths of wire from side to side left and right or your drivetrain may not drive as straight as you like. Check last year's rules for the minimum wire size for everything else

Signal wires: the kit comes with three conductor wires for the control signals. This control signals for the motor controllers are called PWM signals, but the same wires are used for controlling spike relays and many other systems. Although you can put your own connectors on the ends of this wire, you'd be better off buying them premade

The rest: it would be a good idea to check last year's rules to get a good idea of what kind of other requirements there are, such as circuit breakers. You can find these on the FIRST website. Let us know if you can't find them.

Re: Rookie Help
 

772 is indeed mentoring them.

I'm sure Aaron will find this thread, he is your go to contact on 772, and I'm positive they will be happy to help.

Re: Rookie Help
 

I fixed the link for the quote above. Great to see such a good collection of advice. Not just electrical either.

Re: Rookie Help
 

READ THE RULES. All of them. I cannot even begin to describe all the electrical problems teams have had just because they didn't do something in the rules. A couple years ago, a teammate and I helped another troubleshoot why they kept breaking Jaguars. If they had read the rules, it would have been obvious: they were using way too small of wire, and the Jaguar's power wires actually melted together. They ruined at least four of them this way (several hundred dollars’ worth). This same team also used only red wiring, not red and black pairs as the rulebook says.

This year FIRST put together a report detailing all the problems that were had in the championship finals, and many of them were basic electrical issues. One such problem was not having the wireless connected to the regulated power supply. The rules and various diagrams all very clearly state how the wireless should be plugged in. Of course, this shouldn't have made it past the inspection either. My overall point here is that no matter how elite and strong a team is, if they don't go by the electronics rules (or really the rules in general), they will have problems. Just sticking to what the rules say will make your build season go much more smoothly.

Re: Rookie Help
 

Pretty much everything you need to know has been mentioned.

However, I feel the need to tell a story of what happened to us at the South Florida regional due to electrical problems (a simple problem you should avoid).

For whatever reason... someone plugged our digital sidecar into the 5V slot on the power distribution board.

Under this condition, some motors would turn on while others wouldn't, or at least, two-some motors would work at once but no more. 5V was enough to turn on two motors at a low speed, so we never even thought there was a power-related problem because.. after all, the motors were turning on.

All the lights on the digital sidecar turned on too (5V & 6V, etc).

It was as if a ghost was inside our digital sidecar. We ended up swapping out our motor controllers, tossing victors into a box, swapping out the cRIO, changing hundreds of lines of code... all to no avail. Until an inspector looked at our power distribution board and gave us a facepalm expression as he noticed it was plugged into 5V.

Moral of the story, double check your power connections. DS goes in 12V haha.

Re: Rookie Help
 

Is your kickoff having a quick-build?

If so you can go to that, and they'll show you how to hook up all the components, what they do, how they work, and get you running in less than a day.

Was pretty helpful our first year.

Re: Rookie Help
 

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