pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

Re: pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

Could you share more info on this?

-What likely caused it
-How long it took you to fix.

Re: pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

Wasn't our team so I can't comment on it.

Re: pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

Making an educated guess based on the photo?

Looks to me like the positive lead of those wire stubs pulled too much current through the board (possibly by shorting to ground somewhere in the wiring between the PDP+(Speed controller of choice)), overheating it and ultimately igniting the plastic chassis of the PDP.

Re: pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

I will say looking at the bottom of the PDP, there was a distinct burn mark (Unfortunately I don't have a picture) between the 40-Amp breaker slot and the smaller ones. I don't know enough about the situation to say much more.

Re: pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

I do have a picture, which I will post as soon as I can figure out how to make CD allow me to. One theory was some kind of internal arcing. I'm not on their team either, but I think they've already contacted CrossTheRoads. The "good" news is that they only missed one match while repairing their bot.

It definitely was on fire - not just smoke. In addition to the PDP there was a bundle of CAN wire right next to the PDP that was crisped.

Re: pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

We are still not sure why it happened but it was definitely not something that we caused. It took us under an hour to replace the pdp, 2 talons and test everything.

Re: pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

So did the field's fire extinguisher get some use?

Re: pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

Are you or CRE doing any analysis as to why this happened? If it was a short, the inline circuit breaker or the main breaker should have tripped (it auto resets and finally the main breaker trips), I think.

Curious to know if it the heating started on the PDP PCB (internal circuit board) somehow (possibly a metal chip that got under the cover of PDP), so the bypassed inline circuit breaker did not trip and before the main breaker (120A), tripped it melted the plastic.

Re: pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

Yes it did. Here's a video of the incident straight from the stream. (we're working on uploading the other match days- watch them on our website!)

Re: pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

CRE has contacted us and wants us to send them the PDP for analysis. I'm curious to see what they find and I hope they follow up with us on the cause.

It was for sure a massive short but the inline breaker and the main breaker never tripped throughout the fire. We are very careful with our electronics so I'm confident it wasnt a chip, that only leaves manufacturing defects.

Re: pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

Please share your/CRE findings, we all can learn from your experience.

Thanks in advance.

Re: pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

Good thinking on somebody's part to have a CO2 extinguisher available rather than just standard Class ABC. That would have made a real mess.

Re: pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

The trouble with the self resetting breakers is that they will set there self resetting, passing enough current to feed a fire. It probably limits the current enough so the main breaker would not trip. Even 40 amps @ 12V will burn things if concentrated enough. Think car cigarette lighter for those of you with cars old enough to have them.

Re: pic: 3692's PDP after catching on fire at Queen City
 

This was no small fire. With a 3 to 4 inch flame visible from the stands I'm worried about how the whole situation was handled. They let the fire go for just under a minute. Isn't the main priority of first safety? Letting a fire go that long does not seem safe to me.