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Originally Posted by Roland
We keep telling you, use Spectra! Congratulations and thanks so much to both you and 971! |
OK here’s the cable scoop, in the earlier matches our cable was fairly ridged, as we would winch up we believe it was pushing up against a small radius pin that holds our ratchet in place. Since we drive away as we winch, a side load was being applied to the cable (which is only intended to withstand tensile loading). The cable would kink and then eventually snap.
Later we went to a more flexible cable, and didn’t have any problems until we sent the robot out without properly setting up the ratchet. When Jay winched up the ratchet couldn’t engage and we kept back driving down. Not one to give up, Jay kept at winching up and trying to engage the ratchet until…BAM! The top of the bot hit the bar then the bottom of the bot hit the floor…OUCH! Apparently our winch delivers 900+ lbs because we snapped that cable ourselves. Amazingly the robot didn’t have a scratch on it.
The only thing we don’t like about the flexible cable is that it tends to fray and we have to change the cable every 4-5 matches, which we will do if need be. As for the Spectra, the guide we use to route the cable across the spool would have cut through Spectra like a piece of string. So although we may redesign the guide and use Spectra at Nationals it really wasn’t an option at the time.
Good luck to all,
Dennis