[BSV]

The kids are suddenly having some issues with the robot, and we want to make sure we are thinking of everything as we troubleshoot.

The motors are wired up like:

S1 --> Motor Controller 1 --> Motor Controller 2 --> Motor Controller 3
S2 --> Servo Controller 1 --> Motor Controller 4 --> Servo Controller 2

The controllers on S1 always work. Sometimes the controllers on S2 suddenly stop working for no apparent reason. If you unplug and replug any of them (even the last one in the chain), then they usually all reset and start working again. All of the controllers are pretty new.

Sometimes, when they've stopped working, if you bump the robot the servos might show a brief sign of engaging and stopping again.

As we were taking a closer look, we noticed some metal shaving on the robot around the area of Servo Controller 2 and the NXT brain. In fact, they were all over the robot. Apparently, the robot was near a chop saw that the FRC team was using and some of the shavings blew out all over the FTC 'bot. Nothing smoked, but we're not sure how much of an issue this is. All of the controllers read 12V when checked with a multimeter in their non-functioning state. We've no idea how those might affect the electronics. We believe when the saw was used may correspond with when the FTC 'bot started having issues, but we're not 100% sure.

We didn't have any way to clean them up today, but will try compressed air to blow things out tomorrow.

Any thoughts on other things we should look for? Thanks!