Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
A team with the compressor on the robot must show that the compressor shuts off under RC control. By placing the compressor out of the robot, that rule must still be satisfied. Inspectors, as you know, have a hard enough time inspecting normal conditions, this rule should not cause a non-experienced inspector any trouble if there is a pressure check on the inspection list. Letting teams charge up the tanks with other compressor combinations may or may not give them added advantage but from a safety standpoint, I want to know that robot standing next to young field setup volunteer doesn't have more than 125 PSI onboard. If a team uses the pressure switch/RC/Spike combination then there are no worries.
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If we were dealing with a particularly volatile system, operating near its failure point, that would be an entirely reasonable precaution. However, the AVT-32-16 tanks, as supplied, have a rated pressure of 250 psi, and certainly a safety factor on top of that. The kit compressor can't physically sustain much more than 130 psi at 12 V without risking overheating (it may even have a thermal cutoff), and has an integral relief valve that restricts its upper limit anyway. There are pressure gauges to indicate the pressure in the system to anyone interested. Why must all of these safety features be additionally backed up by programmatic control which can be easily defeated in non-obvious ways—if anything, shouldn't the pressure switch be used to directly override the Spike's
input signal from the RC*, rather than relying upon lines of code which can be removed by accident?
Basically, it seems like overkill, and it feels like wasted effort to protect a system which is already far more fail-safe than most of the robot.
*Don't do this. It's a violation of the rules. You must program the RC to accept a signal from the pressure switch over one of the digital inputs. Worse still, don't even think about wiring the pressure switch on the compressor's power lines.