[TedG]

Originally Posted by EricH

One and only one may supply air. That one may be located either on-board or off-board. If they had removed the on-board compressor from the system somehow, then I think they would have been perfectly fine (provided that R86 was met). If they did not, then there exists the possibility that it could turn on during the match, thus supplying air, thus having two compressors supplying air to the same system during the same match, though at two different times, thus potentially creating a rather nasty rules debate if the team gets called on violating a robot rule (and thus not passing inspection, see T06 for the aftermath).

I believe this is the correct intent of the rule. If you pre-charge a system before a match with a different compressor and have the ability to add compressed air during a match, that's an advantage over other teams.

Originally Posted by ehfeinberg

I am pretty sure this is the correct interpretation. In 2011, 449 had two identical (and both 100% legal) pneumatic systems, one on the robot and one off the robot. Before every match we would use our off-board pneumatic system to precharge the storage tanks on the robot. All the inspectors seemed fine with this, and we used this technique through 2 different competitions. The inspectors just required that they could inspect both boards to make sure that they would both be legal if they were on the robot.

However, the 2011 wording is different from the 2013 wording, and it is always up to the Inspector on whether you can or can't do this.

We never use pnumatics so I don't know all the rules, but I'm surprised they let you get away with that. What ever happened to the stored energy rule such as not having compressed springs, coils, surgical tubing? Isn't compressed air the same thing?

**Edit, just read more of the posts, apparently you can have a pre-charged air tank as long as it was filled by a compressor powered and controlled by the robot.