"Testing" motor via Jag output terminals

[Danny Diaz]

This is more a "is it safe" versus a "is this legal" kind of question about performing electrical tests on the robot prior to the code team being complete with their work. Often our electrical team wires up PDB->Jags/Victors->Motors and immediately want to know if the motors work correctly (but are too lazy to remove the connections to the Jags/Victors). So, they unplug the robot battery and grab some alligator clips and momentarily connect the battery directly to the M+/M- terminals on the Jags/victors (via the alligator clips) so that they can see that the motors are running and in the correct direction. Sometimes they do this with a 7.2V battery instead. And, of course, they usually also leave the breakers in place so the battery voltage temporarily powers the robot.

Even though they've never damaged any robot components in any noticeable way (so that I could point out the danger in what they're doing) by doing this, I still yell at them when I catch them doing this. My question is, "Have we just been getting lucky that they haven't fried something?"

-Danny