Quote:
Originally Posted by usbcd36
Still don't understand what they have against small fuses for low-powered devices. If it's all about safety, it's worse to use a large breaker for small wire.
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While I agree that it makes sense, from a stricktly engineering perspective, to use a small fuse rather than a large breaker, and I doubt FIRST has anything "against small fuses", there are a couple of reasons why they might choose to limit what can be used:
1) Inspection: Standarizing the power distribution means that there are fewer chances that an inspector might miss an inappropriate value or type of breaker/fuse. While many inspectors are capable of determining whether a particular breaker or fuse would be acceptable based on the robot design, may inspectors are volunteers inspecting a robot for the first time. Limiting the options speeds inspection and prevents disagreements over what size or type of circuit protection is appropriate.
2) Experience: FIRST has been doing this robot design stuff for a while. They may have found that teams that used low value fuses would have them pop too often and that would negatively affect their experience of the game. FIRST may have also observed that using high value breakers does not present a significant safety risk compared to using low value fuses. In this case, why not specifiy the higher current, self-resetting breaker to ensure teams have fewer equipment failures and get a better experience out of the game.
No, I don't know the WHY behind the rules... this is just my speculation... but I do believe that most of the rules have some kind of reasoning behind them and while we may not always agree with the rule or see the reasoning behind it, there is usually (although not always!) something there. After all, the rules were made up by a fairly rational group of people.
Jason