Chief Delphi - pic: 610 Electronics Board

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Very nice as usual. Have you guys seen these? We printed some out and put them on our Rio and are very pleased with them.

Yes! Those holders from 111 are pretty brilliant. Fortunately we haven't had any issues with loose PWM connectors, or the need to take up the space between them. Unfortuntely, even if we did, we may not have the weight for them... ::ouch::

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The ratio of Inputs to Outputs being used is surprising.

Truthfully, we've never been a big sensor team. Gyro, encoders, pot, optical sensor is what's on board this year. There were plans for some vision, but weight restrictions have put an end to those plans. :(

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Interesting use of ribbon type cable for your Digital signals. How do you split it out at the far end?

We use ribbons of 4 wires for our encoders (Gnd, +5V, A, B). At the other end, they are crimped into a Molex C-Grid 5-position connector which plugs directly into the back of our encoders.
http://www.digikey.ca/product-detail/en/0/WM2803-ND

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The organization is real! Very Nice!

Thanks for the kind words! The work was done by a very dedicated and experienced group of students ranging from grade 10 to 12. They basically wired the entire robot in only one day... It was quite the operation!

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I can't help but see a spider when I look at that PDB with the wires arcing out towards the motor controllers. It looks very nice!

That's some clever usage of the power cables to disguise the PWM's that run underneath, I don't think I've seen that before, but it works well since the eyes are focused upon the larger wires above that are arranged into an aesthetically pleasing pattern.

One question: Is that a loop of extra wire I see just to the right of the VRM? Is there any specific reason that it is looped before going up and into the VRM, or was that just for looks?

That extra loop of wire is hooked up to a very long wire-run that goes to an optical sensor at the end of our end-effector...

The student who ran it was very nervous about cutting it too short.

The rule on our team is that every wire must be "exactly the right length," including strain reliefs and service loops where necessary. This means a few wires inevitably end up needing to be re-done because they aren't the right length.

This run was so arduous that the student who ran it essentially didn't want to risk having to run it again, and threw in an extra strain relief just in case.

We'll probably make him shorten and terminate it once the robot (and specifically the sensor) have been proven-out over the next few days.