I guess I'm hijacking the thread a bit but want to capture a potentially important "gotcha" issue related to battery connections that Alan's post helped to job some cobwebs in my brain.
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Loose main power connections -- on battery terminals, SB-50 connectors, main circuit breakers, and/or Power Distribution Board inputs -- were unfortunately very common. It'll be interesting to see if the logging feature of next year's PDB will help convince certain teams that their general animosity toward "the FMS" is misplaced, and that their loss of robot control on the field can usually be prevented with a bit more attention in the pits to checking and maintaining the robot's electrical system
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Alan,
At the MI Howell district event we even had someone (FTA?, Inspector?) come by and inspect our PD distribution board connections (12V & ground) to the battery to help eliminate this potential problem issue (assume he was going around to all teams.. we had not reported any issue). I can't remember precisely but he quoted something like "teams commonly place a lock washer underneath the battery connection to the PD board when, if used, it should be placed on the top, next to the nut".
Al S, is there any "best practice" on this battery connection to the PD board and main breaker that teams are missing?
I assume there should be a direct connection from the battery connector to the PD board post. Should the FRC
documentation trail capture this somewhere?