Anderson Power Pole

[IanW]

I believe we got them from here. The Powerpole sets seem to be cheaper than at the previously mentioned supplier, while the crimping tool is priced identically.
They are brilliant though - never would want to wire a 'bot without them.

[Jon Stratis]

Just wanted to add one use for them from two seasons ago (Break Away)... Our robot was designed to use a boat winch (hooked up to a CIM motor) to lift itself on the pole. It worked very well, and the way it was designed you couldn't pull out the strap from the winch. But you could drive the motor backwards to let the strap out! We made a pair of PowerPoles easily accessible (but protected from other robots hitting them) between the motor and the victor powering it. It was then a simple matter, between matches, to manually hook a battery up to the PowerPoles (Through a special, fuse-protected connector cable with the normal Anderson battery connector on one end, and a pair of PowerPoles on the other) and let out enough slack to "reset" the hanging mechanism. With this, you always knew you were plugging it in correctly, and it was easy to ensure everything was properly reset and ready for the next match!

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by eagle33199

Just wanted to add one use for them from two seasons ago (Break Away)... Our robot was designed to use a boat winch (hooked up to a CIM motor) to lift itself on the pole. It worked very well, and the way it was designed you couldn't pull out the strap from the winch. But you could drive the motor backwards to let the strap out! We made a pair of PowerPoles easily accessible (but protected from other robots hitting them) between the motor and the victor powering it. It was then a simple matter, between matches, to manually hook a battery up to the PowerPoles (Through a special, fuse-protected connector cable with the normal Anderson battery connector on one end, and a pair of PowerPoles on the other) and let out enough slack to "reset" the hanging mechanism. With this, you always knew you were plugging it in correctly, and it was easy to ensure everything was properly reset and ready for the next match!

Back in 2005 I asked FIRST if I could do something similar (to retract an arm at the end of the match) and was denied.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Back in 2005 I asked FIRST if I could do something similar (to retract an arm at the end of the match) and was denied.

Per <G42> in 2010, you couldn't use any power to reset the robot while on the field - you had to be able to remove it from the tower and field in an unpowered state.

Ours could easily be removed from the field without doing any reset - it was only once we were back in our pits that we would reset the robot using an off-board battery. The entire process was specifically designed to be safe, and we never had anyone tell us we couldn't do it (we specifically showed inspectors how it was done, and we did it during robot reset in Finals matches when we couldn't take the robot back to the pit).

[Al Skierkiewicz]

As an aside, Wildstang has a battery operated, variable speed, reversing, drill that we have modified. The output of the trigger assembly feeds to the outside on a pair of wires connected to Powerpoles. We can then use the variable speed and reversing of the drill to drive any motor in any direction we need. We use this for resetting when desperate or when checking motor wiring and motion during the build.

[rwood359]

Originally Posted by Team2374

I believe we got them from here. The Powerpole sets seem to be cheaper than at the previously mentioned supplier, while the crimping tool is priced identically.
They are brilliant though - never would want to wire a 'bot without them.

We used Powerwerx.com this year as well. They ship USPS priority mail to Hawaii which is a real money saver for us.
We used a standard crimper with varying results. It was difficult to get the contacts fully seated in the connectors. We have purchased their crimper and are hoping that our problem will be solved.

[Mike9966]

Hi all,
I'd just like to second, third, or was that forth, the nod to the power pole connectors. We've used them all 3 years we've been around and love them.
Always buy a few extra contacts though as sometimes some of the young people, well, er, um, lose them, and put them on the wrong end of the cable..... Extras are good to have.

Also, the Drill idea that Al mentioned is a great one. Ask around if anyones family has an old cordless drill with dead batteries and modify it. It makes a great project for the electrical team, and they love it. They even named it last year...... So cute!

Hope everyone's having a great summer,

Mike