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Unread 21-08-2014, 00:16
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Tristan Lall Tristan Lall is offline
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Re: blog; Motor Controller Options for 2015

Quote:
Originally Posted by donkehote View Post
What rule disallows thermal paste? Sticking chemicals on the outside of electronics is modification? Would the same rule disallow Velcro attachment, or labels being applied to speed controllers? Both of those use chemical compounds applied to the heat sink causing different operating conditions.
That's exactly the dilemma: FIRST presumably doesn't want you to douse it in toluene (because you might dissolve something important), but they probably don't care if you write on it using a marker. And yet both chemicals' effects are governed only by the rather unspecific rule against modifications.

The typical compromise is to adopt an ad hoc interpretation of the term modification that is as loose as the circumstances will allow, in order to approximate a just outcome. It's a mess and an inefficient use of everyone's time to have to design with this nebulous constraint in mind.

A clear rule predicated on the functional effects of the modification would be more equitable, but it would also be harder to enforce with consistency and rigour, because of differences in officials' ability to identify and evaluate failure modes. A narrower rule that permits more freedom in design choices, but which also exposes some additional failure modes would also be more equitable, but less safe.

In this case, I vote for the latter: the catch-all safety rule is so strong that the additional safety afforded by the no modifications rule is sometimes negligible. Where that's the case, allow modifications, and focus attention on the teams that do something unsafe, rather than dividing attention among the teams that make mundane modifications safely.
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