We ran a total of 5 matches on Saturday with the new power distribution board, without a single problem. After removing the "bad" power supply, we did discover that there was a few pieces of metallic swarf on the outside. It's possible that a piece worked its way inside and caused problems. The mechanical team has been sufficiently reprimanded.
I'm still interested in the explanation of what the PD board could be doing to cause issues with the radio. Like Alan speculated, perhaps some noise that isn't filtered by the power converter.
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Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
Max,
The 12 volt radio output is exactly 12 volts from a boost/buck regulator inside the PD. It continues to work until the battery falls to about 4.5 volts at which time it quits altogether. It does not track the battery.
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That disagrees with the data sheet for the power distribution board.
http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default...on%20Board.pdf It also disagrees with our experience, both the "bad" board and the "good" board output voltage above 12v when the battery is above 12v.
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12V/2A boost supply with on-board 2A PTC for over-current protection (typically for powering a WiFi adapter, the boost supply tracks battery voltage when the battery is fully charged and greater than 12V)
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Don’t panic if the 12V power supply output is a bit higher than 12V. The supply tracks battery voltage when the battery is fully charged and greater than 12V.
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Originally Posted by McGurky
Can anyone confirm or deny seeing this problem during practice matches on Thursday?
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We had a problem in one practice match, which was initially attributed to code, but may have actually been this problem.
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Originally Posted by PayneTrain
This may sound silly, but I haven't seen anyone with problems explicitly mentioning communications drops with their router plugged into the regulated port for the router.
Our alliance captain apparently got through two rounds of inspection and every qualification match before their communications started dropping Saturday afternoon. The problem was quickly traced to that wiring problem, and was rectified over a series of timeouts, cool-downs, and gentle, gentle driving.
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Our radio was properly connected through the 12-5v converter and the boosted power supply. On a side note, I'm amazed that every year I find a few teams that made it through inspection without using the boosted power supply.