Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
Chris,
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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The same result may be achieved with a properly installed popoff valve which is already required, whether the compressor is mounted or not. I still don't see a valid engineering reason for requiring compressed air from one source over another.
I also do not see how it is enforcable as when the robot lines up in the que I have no idea just where the air on board came from. Yes, they had the required compressor set-up in the pit, but did they actually use it? or did they use something else? How would I tell the difference?
In the past this has been a minor issue. Only a couple of teams at an event would use an off-board compressor. But this year there are more applications where pnuematics are a good fit to the task AND we have twice the storage capacity. So teams like mine that in previous years figured that there wasn't enough storage capacity to ensure the shifters kept working the entire match will be taking another look at doing this.
If it was shown that the onboard system in the authorized configuration could not generate enough pressure to actually blow the popoff, that the popoff was actually there to protect against over pressures caused by mechanical action like forcing a cylinder in a direction it didn't want to go, then I would feel much more comfortable with this rule. Or FIRST could enact a rule prohibiting non-FIRST compressors or air storage devices in the competition area. Until then I will continue to dislike this particular rule, which is not to say I won't enforce it.