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Re: Brownout Prevention?
NOTE: This solution does not fix the problem of brownouts, rather it provides a way to eliminate the brownout from affecting the compressor.
This was a problem my team faced during the end of the build season, right down to the final hours. This year we used a six wheel drivetrain with a dropped center and pneumatic wheels. Our problem was caused by a rapid changes in direction from a CIM motor. This would cause a brownout to the PCM, cutting off power to the compressor for about 3 seconds. Normally this wouldn't bother us, but this year we relied on pneumatic to deploy our boulder intake, and fire our catapult.
Instead of running the compressor off of the PCM as is normal, run it instead off of a spike using 20 Amp breaker. Connect the spike directly to the power distribution board with a 20 Amp breaker, then connect the spike's PWM to one of the RoboRIO's relay pins. Connect the compressor to the spike, and with a little coding, the compressor will be unaffected by any brownouts. This is also completely legal. While this may not fix your problem, hopefully it mitigates the effects.
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