Thread: Battery Smoke
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Unread 29-04-2007, 16:00
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Re: Battery Smoke

Quote:
Originally Posted by PhatMike View Post
Just to add to what Adam said, at our second regional this year (San Diego), one of the teams in our alliance had a poorly covered controller. A bad tangle with another robot, caused the opposing robot's arm (or appendage, or something) to grab all 8 (or so) PWM cables and bend every single pin that they were using on the PWM side of the controller. They carefully bent the pins back, and by some miracle, didn't break any. But, everyone should know that the controller is the single most expensive part possible on the robot, so treat it accordingly.
Wow, that's pretty bad. The header pins are a very good thing to watch out for, especially since the cables can come off so easily. In particular, teams need to be very careful when doing any work above or around electronic components. They need to be sure to completely cover their electronics while cutting, drilling, etc. as it only takes a single metal shard to short something out (the speed controllers are particularly sensitive), and once the shard gets in no amount of compressed air will blow it back out for you.
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