Neat Wires
 

I always enjoy seeing a neat wiring job in an electrical control panel.
Someone took great care in laying that wire out.

I only wish we all had more time and space to do the same in our robots.
I have seen some very nice wiring jobs this year and in the past. Maybe there will be an award for just wiring someday.
We always try to do a good job...but Time and space is sometimes against us.



Jimmy Holmes
Team RUSH 27

Re: Neat Wires
 

I can't help but wonder how much all those zip ties weigh....

Re: Neat Wires
 

Now that is the neatest wiring layout I have ever seen and ditto on the Zip Ties Question / Comment.

Re: Neat Wires
 

It looks real neat. I wouldnt fancy having to service it though.

Re: Neat Wires
 

Ok... can't help it... robotics kid and all.... Is the picture of that wiring job from a large motor controller? With the large caps, fuses, heat sinked thing (most likely ac triacs)... leads me to think so.

Anybody know what that thing is?

-q

Re: Neat Wires
 

Without seeing a larger picture and more items I cant tell what it is. It appears to be close to either a speed controller or possibly just a motor start controller as the capacitors are hooked to the heat sinked items.

-Mike

Re: Neat Wires
 

IT BURNS!! STOP THE NEATNESS!!!
..... methinks someone is uberanal...

Re: Neat Wires
 

well no one from 612 wired that thing thats for sure... :D

Re: Neat Wires
 

We had a robot inspector at a regional who sounded like he wanted our robot to look like that.

I found a different inspector willing to trace our wiring instead. ;)

Re: Neat Wires
 

Omg. I think our e-team leader's heart just skipped a beat... Not to mention I myself am a fan of zip-ties :D

Re: Neat Wires
 

That is some nice clean wiring! Here is what we have done with our robot's wiring for the past few years.

2007 Robot Wiring

Re: Neat Wires
 

Is that mid-build, or are you really just using two small CIMs in the drivetrain?

Re: Neat Wires
 

The other two motors are on the other side which is right below the view of the camera.

Re: Neat Wires
 

Two more CIMs are at the back end of the robot which is not shown in this picture.

Re: Neat Wires
 

So...many...zipties

Re: Neat Wires
 

At one point this build season, I took off a quarter of a pound on the bot just cutting off the ends of zipties :eek: ... There were so many, I just had to weigh them when I was finished. I wound up re-doing the whole board anyway on a different piece of material, and this time designed it so that I could use less zipties....

I'll find a picture somewhere of all of those ziptie ends on a scale...

Jacob

Re: Neat Wires
 

Off topic but, We only use 2 small CIMs with banebots gearboxs and we can push arround other robots, climb up ramps, and manuever better then most teams. We geared it down to a theoretical speed of 7ft/s, so we have plenty of torque and are slow enough to handle easily.

Re: Neat Wires
 

It really is sad....

Gone are the days of using only 2 small CIMs to drive your bot around. Now everything has to be a pushing match. It really is scary how you *usually* need the 2 large CIMs or 4 small CIMs just to be competitive, especially as a defense bot / good offense bot that can't be pushed around.

[/OFFTopicRealization]

Jacob

Re: Neat Wires
 

That is why first has a limit on motors. also weight becomes a factor. so its not like the teams are not giving up to get the pushing power.

Re: Neat Wires
 

That's not an ac triac. It's a three phase bridge rectifier. I actually managed to find the part number because the package looked similar to others I've seen from the same company. The also color coded for three phase power (Red Blue and Black). The round clynidrical objects below the relays are power resistors and are most likely wire wound. Even the ones with the bands on them are beefier than usual. It almost looks like part of a motor testing bench from my perspective. I'll go into more detail later about the how the setup works though later.

Re: Neat Wires
 

It looks like a lot of equipment I work on. Please note the layer of dust on everything, indicating that it has been in service for quite some time. Note the wire colors in use on the two capacitors, one with red and black and one with blue and red, indicating that there is a positve power supply and a negative power supply. The other rectifier is just out of the frame on the left. In addition the power resistors shown are likely either bleeders for the caps or inrush current limiting resistors that are switched out a few seconds after the power is applied by one of the relays in the picture. Other interesting things to note are the meter shunts just above the two large fuses. A shunt is essentially a very samll resistor that is placed in parallel with an ammeter, to directly read a large current. Although it is hard to tell exactly what device this is, transmitters take on the same look. If this is a transmitter, it is either a very low power device or just the control cabinet.

Re: Neat Wires
 

There's a surprise waiting for you in the specifications of the large and small CIM motors. The large CIM outputs 270 W, while the small one outputs 330 W. This means that 2 large CIMs are not nearly as powerful as 4 small ones.

Re: Neat Wires
 

thats for sure, your electronics board was wood right? I shouldn't point fingures, our was horrendous! We didnt even tie our stuff down!!

Chris