Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
Sorry I didn't weigh in on this earlier...
...snip.... Remember that long wire runs, poor crimp and termination techniques will degrade the available voltage at the RoboRio and other systems.
...snip...
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Most of the brownouts I encountered in an LRI role highlighted non-conformance to one, but usually more than one of the practices Al outlined. The most common scenario was a KOP chassis with 4 CIMS, but 6" wheels with relatively poorly crimped heavy gauge wires to battery/PD/Mainbreaker or all 3. I also saw a few with damage on the AB-50 connectors due to charging with Aligaotr clips. All of these problems were in conjunction to only running a couple batteries all weekend (thus very little recharge time).
The brownouts were frustrating for the teams, but weren't terribly hard to diagnose. Only the loose terminals and charging were easy to fix. Talking teams out of 6" wheels are re-gearing the drivetrains was pretty tough.
For those teams, I am not really sure any back-up anything would really help much as it would just let them abuse a battery even more without us finding out they have a problem. I do think it would be worth discussing some back-up means for those that were just getting into some of the other scenarios that have been discussed. It was just not my experience at most competitions I supported.