[dtengineering]

We had one die in the offseason a couple years back, but (crossing fingers) haven't had any problems with them in competition. The "dead" one followed the symptoms Al describes... the black lever would seem to fit into place, but kind of loosely, and would run for a bit, but vibration would swing it into a "half on/half off" position causing the robot to shut down.

One thing we do that may help reduce the mounting issues (other than the fact that we usually mount them to a flat, forgiving surface such as plywood or thin lexan) is that we use nylon bolts and nuts rather than steel. This makes it more difficult to over-tighten, but also significantly reduces weight. This year we dropped almost 1/4 lb from a fairly standard control board just by pulling out the steel nuts and bolts and replacing them with nylon.

Jason