Quote:
Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss
The important point here is this: "Does it matter?" Probably not.
Is it legal? No.
Your call. Do you want to potentially miss a match?
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Yeah. As asinine as it is, the rules are the rules.
It would be nice for next year though, maybe at least have a size and/or airflow/current restriction. Some of the higher end (read, not for PCs or even workstations/servers) brushless fans run so fast that they'll rip off fingertips
... and unless you had grilles or the fans actively controlled (to only be on in Auto/Teleop), which could also mandated in the rules, such fans wouldn't be safe for robots that often get carried while booting up.
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That said, the fans are still fine for off-season use... before the modern battery rules (which are like what I described above, only for batteries), there was only one (and later two) batteries one could use. Up to 2006 it was Exide (IIRC, I wasn't in FIRST that far back), then 2007-2009 it was MK only, with Enersys batteries becoming the new KOP brand in 2010 as a second legal choice along side the MK units. What teams would do is use the "legal" batteries for competition and use those and other batteries of the same specifications for everything else. At least in my old team's (1747) case, we had a local electronics supply for a sponsor and they carried PowerSonic batteries, of which an equivalent was available.
The same could be done with the fans, as the rules only apply at competition. In fact, if you have legal fans on talons already that aren't going to see competition use (in an old/demo bot or the like), I'd swap them, which would save the cost of buying new legal fans. Sure they'd be used, but that way the fans wouldn't be sitting without a use.