Victor Fan Connection

[GregTheGreat]

Hello. I would first like to start by thanking all of you that have been helping with my summer project (now a before-build season project). I am to the point now where I am wiring the electrical system together. I ran into a problem however with the victors. I know how to set the victors up to the breaker and to the PWM input. My question is how and where to the connections of the fan run to. Do they attach to the M+ and M- or do they need to be run to a spike, or are they run right off of the battery?

Thanks For The Help,

-Greg The Great

[FotoPlasma]

You're supposed to crimp ring connectors on the leads, and screw them into the +12 and Common terminals on the Victor, itself. Note that these are not the same as the M+ and M- terminals.

[GregTheGreat]

Originally posted by FotoPlasma
You're supposed to crimp ring connectors on the leads, and screw them into the +12 and Common terminals on the Victor, itself. Note that these are not the same as the M+ and M- terminals.

All I see on the victors are M+, M-, +V, and GRD.

-Greg The Great

[Tristan Lall]

That's fine: +V is the same as +12, (i.e. +12 V) and GRD (or GND) is the same as common (i.e. ground).
You should connect them to the input side of things in order to keep the fan running at all times; if you had them on M+ and M-, respectively, the fan would work, but only when you applied power to the motors! (Don't do that!)

[GregTheGreat]

Originally posted by Tristan Lall
That's fine: +V is the same as +12, (i.e. +12 V) and GRD (or GND) is the same as common (i.e. ground).
You should connect them to the input side of things in order to keep the fan running at all times; if you had them on M+ and M-, respectively, the fan would work, but only when you applied power to the motors! (Don't do that!)

So the fan connections as well as the input for the 12 volt and ground both go on the +V and Common?

Thanks,

-Greg The Great

[generalbrando]

Hmmm. I'm not quite sure you got that right. Remember to check out that wiring diagram. A picture is worth a million words in that case!

[Andrew Rudolph]

yup, make sure you connect them correctly otherwise you will fry the fans, then you will probably fry the victors, and that is expensive.

http://www.innovationfirst.com/first...sersManual.pdf

You should aprobably read the manual linked above, the wiring and everything is on the first page.

[Ricky Q.]

Here you are:

[sanddrag]

Think about this:
What happens when a motor is pulling too much power? The speed contol gets hot. Then the breaker trips. Then power is cut to the speed control. Power is also cut to the fan of that speed control. The speed control is still hot. It now has no fan to cool it.

This is why we wired all our fans to one circuit directly to a separate 20A fuse. When a breaker trips, the speed control is usually hot as well from the motor drawing a lot of power. What the speed control needs least at that time is for the fan to stop. Keep em going and keep Victor cool like he should be.

[generalbrando]

Sanddrag: I never thought about that. Thanks for the tip!

[GregTheGreat]

Originally posted by sanddrag
Think about this:
What happens when a motor is pulling too much power? The speed contol gets hot. Then the breaker trips. Then power is cut to the speed control. Power is also cut to the fan of that speed control. The speed control is still hot. It now has no fan to cool it.

This is why we wired all our fans to one circuit directly to a separate 20A fuse. When a breaker trips, the speed control is usually hot as well from the motor drawing a lot of power. What the speed control needs least at that time is for the fan to stop. Keep em going and keep Victor cool like he should be.

Wait, on that.... What happened if the seperate 20A fuse tripped? If that happened, you could potentanally damage every victor on the robot, especally if you ran like that during a match. By attaching them direct on the victor you insure that the fan runs as long as the motor runs. (Although I like the idea, I believe that it would still be a risk if competeing in a real match.

Thanks For all the help, I think I got have it figured out.

-Greg The Great

[Gadget470]

the victor fans won't pull anywhere near enough to break a 20A. They should be alone on the circuit and not connected to any other electrical things. (Not to OI, not the victors, not a custom circuit, nothing.).

This is a very smart method. The point of it is to save the victors cooling time should a breaker break. If the fan is connected to the same circuit as the victor (which just broke), then the only "extra" cooling the victor gets is from the break until the fan stops spinning. Then the breaker has to wait until air cools it down. With the fans on a different circuit, when the breaker goes, they continue to cool the victor down.

[Bduggan04]

Originally posted by sanddrag
Think about this:
What happens when a motor is pulling too much power? The speed contol gets hot. Then the breaker trips. Then power is cut to the speed control. Power is also cut to the fan of that speed control. The speed control is still hot. It now has no fan to cool it.

The breaker trips because the speed controller draws too much current not because it gets hot. The breaker tripping is in no way related to the temperature of the speed controller. In any event if you can burn up a speed controller with no power to it inside the 5 seconds or less a breaker takes to reset there is a much larger problem on the robot.

[sanddrag]

Yeah but when speed controllers are pulling a lot of power, they too get hot just like the breakers. It is never a bad idea to keep ALL of your electronics cool.

[Andy A.]

Keeping all your fans on a separate circuit seems like a very bad idea to me. Heres why:

The idea behind keeping your fans running on a separate circuit is to keep the FETs cool, no? But by adding another circuit, you add another layer of complexity. It's another system that has to preform %100, %100 of the time. You are setting up a situation were a minor fault, like say a breaker coming loose from impact, could fry _all_ your victors. You are putting some very expensive eggs in a fragile basket for a fractional performance increase in a all ready adequate cooling scheme.

Leaving the fans powered from the 12v input is a much safer way to go. When that victor is on, that fan is on. When the Victor is generating heat, the fan is helping get rid of it. No questions. That is reliability.

When you are wiring an expensive piece of tech like a victor, stick to the wiring diagrams in the manual. IFI really does know best in this matter. If the victors are getting that hot, then you have problems that arn't going to be fixed by those fans.