Use of Flashlight as Aiming Aid

[jblay]

Originally Posted by George1902

This was our photon cannon of choice.

Did you do anything to it to narrow the beam or was it already narrowed the desired amount?

[George1902]

Originally Posted by jblay

Did you do anything to it to narrow the beam or was it already narrowed the desired amount?

You can twist to adjust the beam on the Maglite. We used the light's narrowest beam setting.

[JohnFogarty]

I never actually saw you respond to this until now, thank you very much! (:
Is there a reason why you chose not to use it again this season?

[George1902]

Originally Posted by John_1102

Is there a reason why you chose not to use it again this season?

Sure. Shooting this year is a lot different than last year.

Last year there was no hard object to align with in the safe zone, the goals were only twice as wide as a ball, our camera tracking wasn't getting us close enough to be a consistent shooter, and camera alignment was taking too much time.

This year there is the pyramid, so lining up is easy to do manually. The goals are about 4 times as wide, so the margin for error is larger. Our camera tracking doesn't need to be nearly as precise, so it can be much faster.

Oh, and we do have a photon cannon on the bot this year. We just don't use it to align with the goal for normal shooting. =-]

[JohnFogarty]

COUGH. Full Court. COUGH.
1102 did it too. I know (;

[Adamc4]

Just to get clarification, do you have to wire up the flashlight to the power distribution on the robot from the main battery, or can you just use AA or AAA batteries in an isolated system? I've seen people do it both ways and I wanted to know whether that was legal or not. Thanks!

[ErvinI]

Originally Posted by Adamc4

Just to get clarification, do you have to wire up the flashlight to the power distribution on the robot from the main battery, or can you just use AA or AAA batteries in an isolated system? I've seen people do it both ways and I wanted to know whether that was legal or not. Thanks!

R34

The only legal source of electrical energy for the ROBOT during the competition, the ROBOT battery, is one of the following 12VDC non-spillable lead acid batteries:
A. MK Battery (P/N: ES17-12) or
B. EnerSys (P/N: NP 18-12)

Exception: Batteries integral to and part of a COTS computing device or self-contained camera are also permitted (e.g. laptop batteries), provided they’re only used to power the COTS computing device and any peripheral COTS USB input devices connected to the COTS computing device and they must be securely fastened to the ROBOT.

Yes, you can use those batteries, as long as they don't power anything else.

[Travis Covington]

I would not consider a flashlight a computing device.

[Anupam Goli]

Just to be on the safe side, i would wire the flashlight to one of the WAGO connections on the PDB with a 5 amp breaker. If the flashlight is not designed to take 12 volts, see if you can solder a 7805 IC (or similar) with a heatsink on the flashlight's V-in line to drop the voltage down to 5 (or lower).

[George1902]

Originally Posted by ErvinI

Yes, you can use those batteries, as long as they don't power anything else.

You have to do what's best for your team, of course, but our interpretation was that you CANNOT use separate batteries. It must be powered from the main battery of the robot in accordance to the wiring rules in the manual. There are multiple good ways to do this.

[ErvinI]

Originally Posted by George1902

You have to do what's best for your team, of course, but our interpretation was that you CANNOT use separate batteries. It must be powered from the main battery of the robot in accordance to the wiring rules in the manual. There are multiple good ways to do this.

You're right. I didn't read the "computing device" part. Should've ready what I emphasized more thoroughly .

[bigbeezy]

Question about using a flashlight to line up at start of the match.

G07: TEAMS may not cause significant or repeated delays to the start of a MATCH.

Violation: ROBOT will be DISABLED.

TEAMS are expected to stage their ROBOTS for a MATCH safely and swiftly. TEAM efforts that, either intentionally or unintentionally, delay the start of a MATCH will not be tolerated. Examples of such delays include, but are not limited to:

A. Use of alignment devices such as templates, tape measures, laser pointers, etc. to precisely place and/or align the ROBOT.

B. Late arrival to the FIELD.

C. Being indecisive about where/how to position a ROBOT.

D. Installing BUMPERS, or any ROBOT maintenance or assembly, once on the FIELD.

Based on this, are teams able to use a flashlight to quickly line up a shot, but not have it permanently attached to the robot?

Can we have it permanently mounted and powered by the bot but manually turn it off and on?

[Andrew Rudolph]

Some teams use a Zooming LED flashlight, smaller than the maglite.

Here is one example:
http://www.amazon.com/Ultrafire-Lume...led+flashlight

I have one of these flashlights, when you zoom it all the way in you get a very tight beam, which is a square, the shape of the emitter, and zoomed all the way out its a very wide flood so this flashlight could give you the ability to set a size you like.

I wired a couple up last year for teams (different flashlights from unknown origins), I bypassed the flashlight electronics and directly drove the LED with one of these so I can dim it and wire it to a spike so it could be turned on and off:
http://www.ledsupply.com/03023-d-e-500p.php

That particular flashlight has a Cree XML which you can drive at up to 3000ma, I use the dimming driver because then if its too bright you can turn it back, also I had concerns of overheating the emitter (Which never came to fruition since it was only turned on when aiming)

I believe SPAM wired theirs last year through one of the inverters like we get in the KOP for the radios, just basically hooking into where the C cell batteries normally go.

[Hadi379]

Can you wire a flashlight to a spike, and then wire the spike directly to the 5V output on the PD board? Is that legal?

[karomata]

My team actually used a regular LED replacement for the amber lights you see on all robots, and used a magnifying glass to extend and increase the halo.