Fried Digital Side Car

[Jmayfield4]

We had the same problem with our Digital Side Car as well, we took it apart and the EXACT Same thing is what we had in ours. We took a look and found out that a metal shaving had caused it to short circuit frying the parts.

Jmayfield4
K.A.O.T.I.C. Robotics

[pfreivald]

It's worth noting that we've had problems like this in the past, but since we've changed our practices as a team (turning the robot off before swapping any wires--no matter how trivial, extra super-duper swarf diligence, etc) we've had no DSC issues.

[Crazyboy]

Originally Posted by EricVanWyk

Definitely.

I can back that up. I've actually done it! We had wires come loose and the DSC shorted. We discovered this 5 minutes before our quarter finals match, and I changed it in 3. One of those "can't believe that happened" moments.

[Tungrus]

pay close attention to the picture, the culprit is mutated Woodstock, the bird from Charlie Brown cartoo n (white smiley face next to FET)!

[EricVanWyk]

Originally Posted by TheCascadeKid

I have no idea what caused that, but a flipped PWM in the wrong (or right, depending on how you look at it) could probably do that. How'd it smell?

No, it can not. Plugging in a PWM cable upside down will have no effect beyond not working until it is righted. You can apply any resitive load(s) between any of the PWM pins without damage. This includes dead shorts, but does not include other live circuitry.

Originally Posted by Tungrus

pay close attention to the picture, the culprit is mutated Woodstock, the bird from Charlie Brown cartoo n (white smiley face next to FET)!

The one of the earliest version of this board that was in this form factor had a component that would become rather warm. I actually received an email from a tested that said something like "[that component] is getting very hot, but the squiggly heat lines make me think it is ok". When that component was no longer necessary, I replaced it with a happy face.