[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Joe,
We have been using Power Poles for more than ten years. We have a modified battery drill with power poles coming out of the trigger switch. We can then power motors and reverse them easily with the drill without having to power the robot. Ham radio operators have adopted the Power Poles for DC wiring in the shack and mobile ops. There are several manufacturers who are making power distro using chassis mounted connectors. West Mountain Radio (http://www.westmountainradio.com/ the makers o f the CBA-IV) make a very nice ratcheting crimper. I recommend that teams place their controllers close to the motors they are driving so that you only have one connection between motor and controller. With the CIMs, they come with high temp wire so just add connector to the supplied wire. For drive wiring, we use #10 to maximize available current for these motors. Using these guideline, you can lose the blue and white wiring and stick with just the red/black. We buy zip cord in various sizes from MCM Electronics. (http://www.mcmelectronics.com/) To get #10 started into the Power Pole you may find it easier to spread the terminal a little. Once crimped you get a solid contact. We follow that with a little solder just to be sure. You remember when we lost to Beatty don't you? Wire pulled out of a crimp. You can have your EEs contact me for discussion if they want. The contact can take the current, it is just rated for continuous current and that makes it spec look bad. We are only using the contact for two minutes, not continuous. The heat rise during that time is negligible. They do need some method to keep them together. Tywrap to solid structure close to the connector or simply tywrap across the connector works fine. We also use screw 90 degree 1/4" tabs and female 1/4" crimp terminals to get in and out of controllers. We use uninsulated terminals with solder and heatshrink (see above reason). The tabs are available from Digikey in boxes of 100. Using these allows rapid change of defective components with only one tool, a pair of side cutters.
Al

zip wire? I am not sure that my EE folks are okay with this idea.

Do a lot of teams use zip wire?

Joe J.