Request a Re-Write of the Wire Color Rule for 2013.

[Jeff Pahl]

Originally Posted by apalrd

I also think this rule as written in 2012 doesn't make a ton of sense either, especially for sensor power wires. When wiring multiple sensors in the same location, I've often seen muli-conductor wire bundles used, which likely only have one red and black (if at all), while multiple sensor supplies and grounds are used (possibly independent analog/digital supplies, or something else).

A multi-conductor cable is typically going to include all the colors listed as being acceptable for supply and return colors (assuming a typical conductor count). There also will be a few other colors that can be used for sensor values.

As an inspector, I both love and hate this rule. I really like being able to go up to any robot at a competition and make at least some sense of the wiring. This is very important, as I often have my head inside robots that are not working. I absolutely hate having to tell teams that did not bother to read the rules that all the pretty wiring on their robot is not in compliance with said rules and needs to be fixed.

I understand the reason the rule is written the way that it is. Would love to have them add some more colors, like yellow and orange, etc. My team was frustrated last year by not being able to use multi-color ribbon cable for a run to multiple pneumatic solenoids on the end of the manipulator arm. But it did not meet the color requirement so they worked out another way to do it.

Could be worse, I worked on a project once where the specification was "All wire shall be green". It was a translation error, should have been "all ground wire shall be green" but no one wanted to fix it, so we had 50 pin connectors with all green wire on them. I don't recommend that