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Originally Posted by philso
Will you be adding signal level wiring to the DIO, PWM and Analog Inputs? It looks like this wiring will be sharing the same wireway as your power wiring, possibly leading to noise issues.
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We have used similar (smaller actually) wireway in previous years since 2011. We have not yet had any issues with these wires sharing the same wireway space, even last year when there was only room for two 1" x 2" channels of wireway for all the wires. We will, of course, perform similar testing to ensure that this year's layout is no different.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sperkowsky
I'm going to get my mentor to buy those. Crimps you used on the pdb they look so nice. Looks nice but I'm of the mindset to leave everything exposed but have it neat wireways. I guess it comes from my pc modding background. But seriously nice work I just wouldn't want to have to troubleshoot that.
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I'm curious as to why you're adverse to troubleshooting a layout with covered wireways? Instead of needing to cut zip-ties to free a wire for replacement or having a wire possibly bundled within other wires, you merely have to remove a cover and all the wires are immediately accessible. We layer our wires inside the wireways so that wires on circuits more likely to experience trouble (motor controllers especially) are situated near the top to make replacement and visual inspection much faster than if they were situated at the bottom of the wireway channel. Wires for things such as the team light (which we have never experienced trouble with) and other miscellaneous lights (which are non-essential to robot functions) are placed near the bottom of the wireways since they are either the least likely or the least time-critical things in terms of replacement.
I do, however, understand that adding a cover to hide the wires adds an additional step when visually inspecting wiring for problems. As such we have taken care to choose wireway with a cover that is designed for easy removal and reattachment. Last year's wireway was a perfect example of why. It was clearly designed to be put on and not taken off frequently. Deep "teeth" on the tabs engaged with grooves in the cover and it was designed such that it could not be slid side to side once the teeth engaged. It often took multiple people (or one person armed with a screwdriver) between 5 and 10 minutes to remove the covers, and just shy of five minutes to replace them. This year's wireway has a much milder design in terms of the latch between the tabs and the cover. All five pieces of wireway cover can be removed, with a single free hand, in under a minute by one person and can be replaced just as easily. We also have plenty of room in the wireways this year (each piece is either 1.5" x 2.25" or 2" x 2.25"), as opposed to being cramped for space as in previous years, which has allowed for less clutter in each wireway and resulted in a troubleshooting experience that has thus far been more pleasant than any previous year for us.