What would a safe robot look like?

[ratdude747]

mark EVERYTHING. an eletronic dymo gun is good for this. as an example, my team's 20011 robot wiring label system:

all jaguars have their CAN Id's labled

all wirtes between jaguars and motors have their wires labed with the CAN ID.

All wago connectors on the PD board have the CAN ID or whereever they go labled

All sensor wires have a label to the DIO or AIO on both ends

All sensors have the above label as well


for anything other than radio wiring and stationary cameras, solid cat5 is a no-no. always go stranded (we use one for a sensor umbilical to the wrist and claw on the arm).

tension on eletrical tape is a must... otherwise it comes undone at the folds and wrinkles and snags. i usually end up with 2 layers based on the amount of overlap and I have not had issues...

never solder good mechanical connections... solder improves bad physical connections and makes good ones go bad (wires heating tot he point of thermally tripping the 120A breaker is bad).

always use a good crimper... not some chepo one like this:



ones like this are good:





the latter works the best as long as you put as much perrsure into the crimp as you can...

always remember that the wires coming out of the cims are 14 gauge... not 12. that means blue size crimps! not yellow!

always be sure to use good hardware when mounting your battery... a strap slipped on a practice bot's battery retention system yesterday during a high speed spin at an open house and flung a battery 6 feet... when in doubt, beef it up! batteries are beastly things!