Re: pic: Team 610 - 2013 Electronics Board
 

Is there a CAD file of this drivetrain available? The floating encoders and mounts sound like a really cool idea and I would like to take a look at them if I could.

Re: pic: Team 610 - 2013 Electronics Board
 

Video of Mr. Lim's dance moves.

Re: pic: Team 610 - 2013 Electronics Board
 

Mr. Lim's dance moves were so fantastic they couldn't possibly fit behind one tiny smiley face.

Re: pic: Team 610 - 2013 Electronics Board
 

Glad to see you made it home safe Mr. Hoffman. ;)

Re: pic: Team 610 - 2013 Electronics Board
 

We will probably upload our CAD to www.frc-designs.com at some point in the future. I would do it now, but unfortunately, I, and many other members of our team, are currently writing exams, so we don't have much time to sort out our CAD and upload it. I'll explain a bit about how our encoders are mounted.

As you can see in the picture, our CIMs are pretty close together. We made a small plastic piece with our 3-axis CNC router that looks like a rectangle with a semi-circle cut out on either side of it. These portions of a circle are made to fit perfectly around a CIM. There was a hole in the middle of the piece for an encoder to fit through so we could screw it on. We then slid the piece in between the CIMs. The friction was enough to keep the plastic piece in place.

We then used our usual method to connect the encoder to the shaft. On 610 we use a technique we borrowed from 188, which is using surgical tubing to connect an encoder to a shaft. We simply slide the encoder into one end of the surgical tubing and the shaft into the other end. It works extremely well and we have never had issues with it.

If you have any more questions feel free to ask or message me! Hopefully we'll be able to get that CAD uploaded soon.

Re: pic: Team 610 - 2013 Electronics Board
 

Who is Mr. Lim?

Re: pic: Team 610 - 2013 Electronics Board
 

That is probably some of the neatest wiring I've ever seen...

Re: pic: Team 610 - 2013 Electronics Board
 

I bet you've never seen 254's electronics board...

Re: pic: Team 610 - 2013 Electronics Board
 

I have not! I'll check it out sometime

Re: pic: Team 610 - 2013 Electronics Board
 

Wow... someone can't compliment a robot without you saying "but 254's is better"...

Re: pic: Team 610 - 2013 Electronics Board
 

Fair enough. I'm being too harsh. 610 has a great looking electronics board, but 254 is notoriously picky about having straight wiring, etc., so I suggested that he take a look at their electronics bard. In any case, you sure cant argue with 610's results.

Re: pic: Team 610 - 2013 Electronics Board
 

FIRST Robotics Canada did a series of webinars during build season this year, and we did a quick walk-through of our electronics board on one of them. The goal was to show younger teams what a completed board could look like, and how things generally are wired:

Part 1:
http://youtu.be/wRDkPfUYakM

Part 2:
http://youtu.be/BN2ih23KMMc

I think our boards are pretty effective and fairly neat, and there are a lot of little details our students do which make a big difference, but aren't particularly flashy. I won't claim that our boards are the prettiest, or the neatest, but they work pretty well, and are some of the most straightforward I've had to troubleshoot and service. I also think our electronics build process is something that most every team in FRC can duplicate, even low-resource teams.

We tend to focus on things like labelling every single wire at both ends, putting zip-tied strain-relieved disconnects at every motor, speed controller and sensor with standardized connectors/pinouts and pigtail lengths to make replacing components a lot easier. These are the types of time-consuming nitty-gritty things that won't win you a lot of fans or awards, but it'll win you a lot of matches.

As far as electrical board go, I know both my students and I are very proud of the work they've done, but if you're looking for truly inspirational electrical boards, you should definitely take a look at this thread:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=111976

Re: pic: Team 610 - 2013 Electronics Board
 

This is the kind of stuff judges look for in the Quality award.