Re: Wire color...
 

Ouch. I happen to fall into this boat; we considered everything that could fall/hang/dangle off/down/from the robot's electrical system (which was mounted upside down as a safety measure against balls and to save space on the robot) - however, I guess we never considered the breakers falling out since we have a hard time pulling them out by hand as it is. But, I guess I can see how this is just another thing we need to consider. Any suggestions on how to guarantee the breakers don't fall out, other than mounting the board right-side up? Has that been a problem with the new Power Distribution Boards?

-Danny

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Danny,
I was speaking to the old fuse blocks. The new PD holds pretty tight until it has been used repeatedly. However, if your robot comes off the bump hard, it might pay to think of a way to put a piece of lexan over the breakers that will not obstruct their view for inspection.

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In 2005 we mounted all of our electric upsidedown and we had no problem with fuses falling out. We also used ruber bands to help hold in the PWM cables. This year every thing is mounted upsideright and our fuses have almost fallen out many times. We have to keep checking them and pushing them back in.

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Joe,
Are you using a new PD or last year's?

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We are using the new one.

I have never seen a game shake up a robot as much as this one.

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That is very odd. Ours is so tight we have a hard time pushing the breakers in. There isn't a chance that the cover has shifted a little and you are inserting the breakers between the cover and the outside of the female terminal is there?
And I know this sounds strange but I have to ask. Have you asked if anyone has made any adjustments to the PD? I have had more than one team stretch open contacts because they thought they were too tight. One was on cable terminals for the Spikes, one was on the old fuse block and one was the main battery connector. The last one produced the most damage.

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How I found the loose breakers was in between matches I noticed a light coming form the fuse panel. I chased it down and one fuse was almost completly out and two others were on there way out. The fuses were the 20 amp type. The larger 40 amp fuses were tight and almost impossible to pull out. Maybe it was not pushed in correct but I don't think so.

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We were going to mount all of our electronics upside down, but our electrical captain didn't want to have to lay on his back to work on the wiring, so he just hung panels off of the frame. The biggest problem I would see with a board being upside down isn't the breakers, but the pwm cables coming loose. In the past and even this year, we've had a bunch of issues with loose pwm cables causing control devices to cut out during matches.

This year, the pwm cable for our compressor's spike wouldn't seat into the connector if the spike had its housing on. When I just used the internals from the spike, it responded, but as soon as I put the housing back on the spike, there was no communications between the digital sidecar and the spike. After trying different spikes and different cables, I cut some of the housing for the spike off allowing the cable to sit lower and that was the last we saw of that problem.

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I've been playing with another PD that we have in our shop right now - I have also noticed that the 40-Amp fuses on the new PD are next to impossible to put in and take out, but some 20-amp fuses are easier to pull out and some are waaaay too easy to pull out (I don't remember them being that loose on our robot, and I know none fell out during our pre-ship scrimmage). I'm definitely taking your advice and mounting a plexiglass panel over the PD once we get to Dallas next week, better safe than sorry.

Thanks!
-Danny

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We used zip-tie mounting plates (1"x1" plastic self-adhesive pads) and forced the PWMs into tension against our Spike and Victors by zip-tying the PWM cables to the mounting plates. The Jags have the tension "clips" that we used to prevent the PWM's from falling out. With this, we cannot even pull the PWMs out by hand without cutting the zip-ties.

You aren't using a male/female adapter on the PWM cable, are you? We find that those male-male (pretty much a 3-pin header almost) adapters do not fit into Victors or Spikes nicely, you've got to use the Universal Servo connector with the pins built into the plug. Otherwise, you have the issue you mention, and it doesn't stay plugged in very long no matter what you do.

-Danny