Quote:
Originally Posted by Russ Beavis
Why does the PD have 4 terminals (a pair of + and a pair of -)?
Short answer - Because the cRIO has the same 4 terminals and we wanted the PD to use the same pinout.
Then you might ask "well, why does the cRIO have a + pair and - pair?" According to the datasheets for the cRIO, its internal power supply is designed to be driven by redundant power supplies for extra ruggedness.
Many high-availability/critical applications require multiple power sources for safety/reliability. So... if you need that level of performance, you can include an extra power supply and use both to power the cRIO. The module will use whichever power supply is outputting a higher voltage. If one supply breaks, the other supply will continue to power the cRIO.
Russ
|
Russ-
Thank you for a succinct and informative answer. It is always helpful when answers are provided with a philosophy of "you may not use this in FRC, but we recognize that the world is larger than just FIRST, so here is some information that may be useful beyond the boundaries of the competition." While sometimes that information may never get used, more often that extra knowledge can spark a thought that leads to a new application or the creation of a new development that might never have happened otherwise.
It is a much better approach than "you don't need to know, and we are not going to tell you."
-dave
.