Need some legality/possibility advice...
 

ive got a couple of idea's ive been throwing around, but need people to tell me about the legality of them... here goes...

PWM cables

i recently found a source for crimp ends to make our own PWM cables, but now i have a few ideas...
- Is it legal to run multiple PWM lines going to nearby places (ie a bank of victors) within a single CAT5 cable?
- Would it be safe to, in said CAT5 cable, tie the ground pins at both ends to a single wire in the bundle, and completely omit the +7.2v pin as it is not needed by anything but real servos?

OI

has anyone attempted/seen a team build an LCD into their OI in place of LED's? I'm thinking i might use the 8 LED lines as a paralell output to an LCD board... (i know it sounds crazy, but i think it can be done and i plan to do some initial experimentation this summer)

and im just going to throw this one out for comments... at our regional we had a match where the drivetrain breakers got stuck in a tripped state due to the fact that they were in my pocket :( ... so to remedy this problem going forward im thinking about implementing a sort of "POST" check where the RC would check several things such as presence of breakers and sound a beeper if it didnt find something... im working on a mechanism to silence it in case of legitimate breaker removal, but otherwise i *think* it can be done

comments? insults?
-Chris

Re: Need some legality/possibility advice...
 

Read the rules first. If you don't find anything in there, assume it is legal until someone official says it is not. Have a backup plan in case it is not legal. Good luck.

Re: Need some legality/possibility advice...
 

For the LCD, you could probably get a TTL->RS232 driver for the TTL serial port and then use a sort of standard serial LCD kit like was popular with the case-modding community till USB ones came out.

Or if you want it on the OI.... I didn't get to do enough programming this year to know if there's a good serial interface besides the dashboard....

Re: Need some legality/possibility advice...
 

I want it on the OI... and i know there isnt a serial interface... :)... i plan on writing some uber complex code to do parallel signals on the LED pins... from some prelim research it looks like most standard parallel LCD's use synchronous comms, so it shouldnt be too hard...

async would be a NIGHTMARE!