pic: 1538's Practice Electronics Board

[connor.worley]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

That's an amazingly clean layout. It's almost ridiculously clean. I'd be concerned that any wiring issues would be hard to fix without ruining it.

Forgive the nitpicks, but is the cRIO insulated from the frame? And you do know that it's never been legal to replace the Spike fuses with breakers except on the one controlling the compressor, right? I'm also curious why the PDB isn't rotated 180 degrees so the power wires to the Victors and the Spikes don't cross each other, and the cRIO power can run a shorter distance, though I can see it would be a tradeoff against the battery position.

We have some adhesive rubber between the cRIO and the frame. As for the breakers, we only used the for testing on the practice bot. The battery was our biggest concern with the PDB, and finding room for 4 gauge wire was difficult even with the short run. I will post more photos when we take apart the practice bot.

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Conner, do you think you could get together with Kiet to put together a simple white paper about the methods/part numbers/wire choice (brand, source)/terminals/tips that he taught you this year? Do you use nylon/other plastic hardware to mount electronics? What is the best generic layout? Does having a waterjet hole pattern for electronics really force you to keep a clean layout?

Would be great to have these down on paper if you folks get the time. Thanks!

This sounds like a great idea. I will talk to Kiet about it.

[kiettyyyy]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Conner,
One of the best electrical wiring jobs I have ever seen. In addition to the nice layout, everything is very short giving the best electrical loss layout. The only thing I could think of, it the PD bridging the distance between two sides. Please remember this is one giant circuit board with a lot of copper on it. The mechanical stress it is likely to encounter might cause a break in the board. If it is not firmly attached to both sides, you should be OK.
Gold Star!!!

Thanks Al,

The PD mount area is very rigid as there is a supporting 2x1x1/8" cross member with holes for solid standoffs to mount the electronics plate to.

There is little to no wobble when trying to move the PD.

[kiettyyyy]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Actually I believe they are flush cutters, most likely of the Xuron brand, but possible Xcelite.

I'd like to know what p/n of terminals you used on the Victors, and if you had to sand them to fit.

They're Xuron brand flush cutters.

The spade terminals that we used were sourced from McMaster-Carr, PN 69145K62. These fit perfectly in the Victor terminals. We did not need to modify these connectors.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I'm also curious why the PDB isn't rotated 180 degrees so the power wires to the Victors and the Spikes don't cross each other

I was curious about that too. We've learned over the years we have vastly fewer problems when we keep the crosses strictly perpendicular rather than running them parallel and wrapped up in a bundle.

Apart from that, it looks absolutely beautiful. I approve.

[kiettyyyy]

Originally Posted by CalTran

I was curious about that too. We've learned over the years we have vastly fewer problems when we keep the crosses strictly perpendicular rather than running them parallel and wrapped up in a bundle.

Apart from that, it looks absolutely beautiful. I approve.

As mentioned earlier, space constraints were very tight with this robot. We needed to have a shorter mains wire run between the PDB and the battery box area.

Regardless, we did not have any issues mounting the PDB as pictured.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Kiet,
I was thinking that robot frame flexing while driving or being hit would allow some movement between the two sides of the robot. It is this independent movement that I was worried about.

[sdcantrell56]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

What motors, ratio, and diameter were these run on?

We debated running our various conveyors on them, but were afraid of tripping the fuse with a 500 sized motor.

We ran our tower on a spike. 16:1 custom spur gear transmission with one 550 and 1.75" rollers. Our intake at the same ratio would ocassionally pop the breaker so we swapped to a victor for that one

[Travis Covington]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Kiet,
I was thinking that robot frame flexing while driving or being hit would allow some movement between the two sides of the robot. It is this independent movement that I was worried about.

The baseplate goes underneath the PDB. Not sure if you can see that?

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Thanks, Trav. I would hope that would suffice.