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Unread 10-01-2007, 15:37
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Richard Wallace Richard Wallace is offline
I live for the details.
FRC #3620 (Average Joes)
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Re: Off robot air compressor

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tristan Lall View Post
... 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), ...
At the Thomas site (with some digging) you can find a .pdf datasheet for the 405ADC38/12 compressor. Its motor is rated for 12V, 10.5A continuous duty. It is thermally protected, which means that it will turn itself off before overheating. Rated current draw at stall is 25A, so presumably it will self-protect when stalled long enough to get hot. Rated pressure is 100 PSI continuously, and rated ambient temperature range is 50 deg F minimum to 104 deg F maximum.

All this supports what Tristan is arguing above -- the FRC rules for pneumatics provide multiple levels of safety. Possibly more levels than are really needed, but I'm comfortable leaving that to the GDC. The pneumatics rules as written are not hard to understand or police, except that I still think Al's suggestion above regarding configuration of components for use with an off-board compressor is very sensible. I would like to get a Q&A response on that.
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Richard Wallace

Mentor since 2011 for FRC 3620 Average Joes (St. Joseph, Michigan)
Mentor 2002-10 for FRC 931 Perpetual Chaos (St. Louis, Missouri)
since 2003

I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
(Cosmic Religion : With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931) by Albert Einstein, p. 97)