pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

Its a talon with a blown transistor

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

Pretty sure that's a Talon that has been burned out...

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

It looks like a talon, I've seen the how its made on them

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

I didn't know that was possible... :D

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

Talon Flambe'

It's what's for dinner....................

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

Something tells me that the red leads and the black leads went into the wrong spots--the screws are all out of position...

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

Talon with a blown capacitor. You probably switched the input wires by mistake...

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

I agree.. Q12 leads (4) appear to have experienced high heat surge i.e. they are discolored.
& is likely one of the 4 bridge FETs (H-bridge power switch between input power & motor load)

often the result of a drain-source overvoltage spike "punch thru" which puts the battery across the switch without current limiting.. strange thing is 2nd FET does not appeared to have the same damage - as one is tied to +12 other to ground return (-)

The big cap looks fine.. debris on it appears to be adhesive or pealed conformal coating

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

Talons have diodes or something on their input leads to protect from people switching the two

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

I do not believe that is the case.

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

Its a talon with busted electrolytic capacitor, the ash/grey dry powdery stuff is the leaked and dried liquid.

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

That is thermal compound. The cap touches the heat sink.

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

I can confirm that is not the case!

Been, there, done, that, have the magic smoke and a conversation with Mike Copioli, along with some hush money to get a replacement. No freshmen were harmed during the thermal event, or after I realized what they did. . .

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

RTM. Top of Page4. Large WARNING box with bright yellow warning triangle.

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

This Talon came off of our 2013 robot. We got in a habit of unplugging the wires to the talons that controlled our climbing arm. I'm not sure the entire story behind it, but the power wires were reconnected with reversed polarity and poof. White smoke in downtown Flint.

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

In the future, every city will have 4 buildings that look like terminal screws

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

Has anyone found a keyed connector that can take 12 gauge wire?

My thought was to mount pigtails on the talons and use two different keyed connectors to help prevent this (happened twice to us).

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

You can do this with the small Anderson Powerpoles. If you take a close look at the housings, you'll note that rather than mounting them side by side, you can attach them together with one of the two rotated 90 degrees. If you do that consistently, you've effectively made a keyed connector.

I've generally found that enforcing color coding and having an experienced second set of eyes check wiring before conducting smoke tests is good enough, but it's an option.

Re: pic: Someone tell me what THIS is!
 

Thank You. That is exactly what I was looking for.

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Be sure to do a search for powerpoles here for more hints on their use. We have finally managed to get most of our motors and control components involved in using these, but it is still possible to put a ring terminal on the wrong post and/or a bare wire-end into the wrong Wago hole on the PDB. It would help if more attention is paid to color correspondence. Our talons have red tape next to the sides at which red wires should be connected, for instance.