Wow, thanks for the help so far! This is one of those whatifs I'm taking to the next step. I'm hoping that if we can do this for next years bot ill be able to do a white paper on how we did it.
To explain my idea a bit better: This idea sprang up from having to replace the RC mid day on Thursday and the cuts on my hands that ensued. Plus we had an issue on Friday where a single chip of metal was causing a 5v short that was giving us some headaches. The idea with a removable pull out panel is that we can set it aside if we are working on the robot and not worry too much about metal shavings, and if i need to change a wire or something i can do so without getting in the way of the build team.
The panel would have 3 banks of connections:
1 main battery connector: The battery and 120 amp switch would be mounted on the robot, and the main battery power would be delivered to the panel via what i hoped would be another 50A Anderson connector.
X Motor connections: these would be provided by
Anderson power pole connections. We used these in 2005 and really liked them overall, but some supply issues and could not get them this year. I think the would work well for this application since they can be combined and mounted.
X TTL/Data/Servo connection. This is the sticking point. The DB25 we used this year worked well, but i don't know if it would really work as well on a pullout design. an edge connector (Think PCI card) would be cool, but might not stand up to the wear.
Our camera problems this year were not so much the fact the TTL was falling out but that it was not making connection somewhere, Either a pin or female mate was bent weird or out of shape somewhere, since code wise it was fine, and wiring wise we were also fine. I couldn't nail down the problem, one time it would work, then we would loose it again, quite frustrating when everything is right >.<.
again thanks for everyones help! now to start fleshing this idea out some more
