Wiring the Breaker Panel
 

OK, so we are wiring up our robot right now, and we ran into a question. Should you wire the breaker panel down in numercial value, or should you load balance them? The reason we ask is the left has only one 30 amp circut , and the right side has the controller, compressor, and 5 spikes topower, about equaling each other out. Any suggestions???

P.S. The rules never mention anything about this, but the guidelines recomend numbering down on every number.

Re: Wiring the Breaker Panel
 

Accodring to the manual for the circuit breaker panel it is said for optimal power you should have the electrical components and their respective breakers be connected from the lowest number possible and then to the next higher number. So you should go from one to two and so on. i don't know how much it affects the power flow if you don't do this but I think it is better to just follow what the manual says.

Re: Wiring the Breaker Panel
 

on the panel, it says to wire from the low numbers to the high ones and put the 30 amp breakers first. it should work fine with these guidelines.

Re: Wiring the Breaker Panel
 

I would think that the reason for going from lowest to highest is for the sensing the tripped breakers. When the panel sees a bunch of un-used slots after a certain one, it knows that they are unused, not tripped.
So if you want the light, and the other data stuff to work right, I would think that you would have to go from lowest to highest like they said.

Re: Wiring the Breaker Panel
 

I would guess that the guidelines are to minimize the resistance of the paths inside the breaker panel. Keeping that in mind, I would think your proposed arrangment should be just fine.

Re: Wiring the Breaker Panel
 

Steve,
By following the advice of others and the Breaker Panel Guide you are balancing the loads. A close look at the panel will show that breaker positions 1 and 2 are closest to the input terminal physically and electrically. My recommendation is that the RC be powered from either 1 or 2, minimizing the loss of high current loads on the voltage available to the RC. At this time we are alternating circuit breaker positions to give some distance between circuit breakers for cooling. (i.e. 1,2,5,6, etc.) Use the same convention on the battery returns to keep your wiring straight forward.

Re: Wiring the Breaker Panel
 

Wouldn't wiring method go against their recommendation of wiring 30amp circuits first, then 20amp circuits?

Re: Wiring the Breaker Panel
 

I consider the RC to be the brains and heart of the robot, so it gets first feed on the electrical. High current loads cause a voltage drop (albeit a small one) across any resistance so by placing the RC first prevents the RC from receiving less than battery voltage. Just my preference.

Re: Wiring the Breaker Panel
 

Yeah but we have the backup battery now which makes sure the RC always has the correct voltage, so you shouldn't need to worry about that and should just follow FIRST guidlines, I think.

Re: Wiring the Breaker Panel
 

I think if you ask around you will find many teams who drained the backup during matches last year and with the backup feeding camera power as well this year... I like making my own luck when I can.