Thread: Capacitors on speed controllers
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Unread 23-06-2002, 22:09
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#0047 (ChiefDelphi)
  
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Re: Capacitors on speed controllers and antenna attenuators
Posted by Jerry Eckert, Engineer on team #140 from Tyngsboro, MA High School and New England Prototype/Brooks Automation.

Posted on 3/21/99 6:43 PM MST


In Reply to: Capacitors on speed controllers posted by colleen on 3/21/99 6:14 PM MST:



:
: In our first elimination match, our alliance's (team #19 Bell Atlantic/GreenwichHS) robot went dead. when checking out the situation, they said it was because they didn't have capacitors on our speed controllers (neither did our robot), but let the match be re-run because FIRST never specified that point at the beginning and was trying throughout the competition to get teams to put them on.

: i was just wondering if anyone new the real ruling on that (although i'm sure/hope there will an update regarding it)? at any of the other regionals were teams advised to put them on the InnovationFIRST SC, or was this only at the UTC Regional?

I was just about to post a note on this same topic...

As many of you are aware, FIRST has been advising not to put the bypass capacitors on the
motors this year to eliminate short circuits caused by the capacitor leads. At the Hartford
check-in we were strongly advised to place the capacitors across the output terminals of all
speed controllers - not just those controlling the drill motors. Apparently there have been
a number of problems they believe to have been caused by noise interfering with the speed
controllers and even the receiver.

Another note -- make sure you use the attenuator on the receiver antenna.

Even with the capacitors we had severe problems with data corruption errors which left the
robot essentially dead. These problems occurred only when operating from one position on
one field: it worked fine in the pits and from the other three positions. FIRST claimed
this was due to the attenuator not being used on the receiver antenna. I can't verify
this was actually the problem as we didn't have another match in that position after
correcting the problem, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up so they can make sure
they don't run into the same situation.

- Jerry

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