How to wire unrealistically well?

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

keep these wires on dedicated "roads", like visible in this photo of FRC 973:

Also carefully notice that there is a small "service loop" of wire at the connection (particularly at the PDB) that gives a little slack to allow the wire to be disconnected abd reconnected if necessary. Don't leave wiring so tight it can't be moved.

Originally Posted by yash101

I think it is best to have a very small electrical team that actually gets work done, because they can communicate much easier. We have two members, Ryan and Ben, who actually get work done while everyone else is messing around!

In short, keep the electrical team short and make sure that they are always working on something! Their ain't any end to improvement .

OK, we have one kid who is over 6 feet tall - should we get rid of him? He's pretty good at it and we'd hate to lose him...

[Foster]

So these pictures of nicely routed wires are missing a key item.

Cable labels. It's nice for you that wire a robot once and then never need to remove components, unfasten wires, etc.

Cable labels can save the day! I've used the lables that roll around the cable, they come 0-9 and A-Z.

In a more perfect world cables get double labled

]] this end / the other end ------------------------- the othe end / this end [[

(Art has sketching skills, I don't )

This allows you to take the device off and know where the now dangling end goes, or lets you do a traceback through that nice neat bundle of ziptied cables go.

[yash101]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Also carefully notice that there is a small "service loop" of wire at the connection (particularly at the PDB) that gives a little slack to allow the wire to be disconnected abd reconnected if necessary. Don't leave wiring so tight it can't be moved.
OK, we have one kid who is over 6 feet tall - should we get rid of him? He's pretty good at it and we'd hate to lose him...

No. What I'm saying is to keep the team short. Don't get rid of anyone! As long as everyone can effectively communicate with each other, the team is the right size!

[Luke Harma]

Zip tie and label your wires.

[BA SW]

Maybe you could try using software to show a picture of what you would want your wiring to look like before people start wiring it. If people know what it is supposed to look like before they start it might help out. For example, SolidWorks Electrical will allow you to wire components along a 3D sketch or guide line in the CAD model. Then you can flatten this and find out exactly how long each wire needs to be so it can be cut to length beforehand. You can also use the software to check for clearances and interference so you know if you have enough space for all the wires before you start.

[Jon Jack]

Originally Posted by yash101

I'm just wondering, but wouldn't that cRIO placement be illegal? Doesn't the cRIO ground itself? Is that a metal matrix under the electrical components.

We use an adhesive backed silicone sheet (McMaster P/N: 8622K41). We cut the sheet to the size of the cRIO and stick it on. You can do this to several cRIOs with one $38 sheet.

Another thing we do is use nylon fasteners. We do this for a few reasons:

1. Using plastic fasteners on the cRIO helps further isolate it from the baseplate.
2. You can trim all the fasteners to length (after they've been installed) with a pair of flush cutters.
3. We're tapping into 1/8" thick aluminum and the threads on the nylon screw will give before we can strip out the tapped hole in the baseplate.
4. They're light.

[Doc Wu]

Don't forget that copper is heavy. The weight of #12 or #14 wire is not insignificant.

All that neat, right angle turn wiring looks nice, but the hypotenuse of a triangle is shorter than the two sides.

We had a panel with a number of victors one year and wired it all neat and tidy, with a loop so that the panel could be swung down to work on. We needed to lose some weight, though, and ended up cutting about half a pound out of it all without much trouble by re-routing many of the wires.

Layout is important. If the flow from the battery to the main breaker to the PDB to the motor controllers is short, things will be much easier.

[Audrey Chu]

Last year our team was more successful than we've ever been electrically. We had a two person team. Everyone has his or her own style, but the main things were patience and a perfectionist streak. I think I rewired the robot (meaning stripped it down and rerouted wires) maybe five or six times during the last two weeks. I would suggest that you keep in mind where you want your wires to be or not be throughout your design process and maybe even use markers while prototyping.

[yash101]

Originally Posted by Jon Jack

We use an adhesive backed silicone sheet (McMaster P/N: 8622K41). We cut the sheet to the size of the cRIO and stick it on. You can do this to several cRIOs with one $38 sheet.

Another thing we do is use nylon fasteners. We do this for a few reasons:

1. Using plastic fasteners on the cRIO helps further isolate it from the baseplate.
2. You can trim all the fasteners to length (after they've been installed) with a pair of flush cutters.
3. We're tapping into 1/8" thick aluminum and the threads on the nylon screw will give before we can strip out the tapped hole in the baseplate.
4. They're light.

Haha Ya. We screw the cRIO into the wood, but velcro everything else!

[moogboy]

My team's wiring was always immaculate, largely because one of our mentors took the time to make a full size drawing of exactly how he wanted the motor controllers/CRIO/power distro board placed. After that, he would show me exactly what path the wires should take to get where they needed to go, and as long as I followed that path and remained disciplined, all was good.

The biggest thing for me was having a plan and then executing it with as little interruption as possible.

[Ariane Nazemi]

For some strange reason I believe robot wiring should be in an odd space between zen art-form and OCD organization. I always relish the opportunity to bring order to the chaos of wires that need to criss-cross throughout the robot. Making them look beautiful in the process is an added bonus. If you consider the wiring itself to be a kind of art project, it makes things that much more enjoyable (for me at least). I really look forward to seeing what my team can do this year, being rookies I hope we can learn clean and beautiful wiring technique at an early age.

Also this is my first official post on Chief Delphi, so I just wanted to say hi!

[RKazmer]

Originally Posted by Foster

Cable labels. It's nice for you that wire a robot once and then never need to remove components, unfasten wires, etc.

Cable labels can save the day! I've used the lables that roll around the cable, they come 0-9 and A-Z.

This is a link to the cloth labels 2363 uses. They are easier to wrap around the wire and stay unlike labels from a label maker(they fall off in a day).

http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-wire-labels/=sl7zlz

We use the wrap-around wire markers with NEMA colors (blank) and then write the number or voltage needed for the wire.

Also, one of the keys to good wiring is the right material to mount the electronics on. The other pictures show an aluminum bellypan with large spaces in it for ease of using zipties. We ended up using a perforated polycarbonate from AndyMark.

http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-0836.htm

And of course no wiring job is complete without 1000+ zipties.

[iKiel2012]

One thing that my team, 1073, has had problems with in the past is that the electrical portion of the robot isn't in mind when the mechanical aspects of it are being designed. Make sure both of those groups can figure out a design that works for both...

[Chris is me]

We've been gradually getting better at wiring over time. We'll never be the Poofs, but we've got functional and organized wiring.

This was mentioned already, but one really easy trick that helps a ton is to use zip cord. Red-black zip cord in FRC wire gauges is commonly available and really helps keep things together. Even if you do nothing else, zip cord should cut your wire mess in half.

We've used wire ducting before to get wire runs out of sight, which is neat enough for a lot of teams. You can get wire ducting in the same sizes as rectangular tubing which I think makes the wiring more aesthetically pleasing.

A new thing we used everywhere this year was adhesive backed zip tie mounts. Similar to McMaster part number 7566K64, these little things allow you to put a zip tie wherever you'd like on a wire run without having to drill holes. Since we've rearranged our electronics layout more than a few times, using these instead of holes helps prevent a belly pan that looks like ugly swiss cheese.

[221Sarahborg]

Make sure to plan ahead in wiring as far as layout goes. We usually get to know what all we need to wire to and where our limits are so we get to work with all of our components on our base board knowing where they would best fit. We also make a digital schematic with all of the parts showing wire connections to what and where they go to. Make sure you keep in mind where mechanical or pneumatic stuff needs to go.

As far as keeping it organized on there, we use wire spiral wrap to keep groups of wires together or the wire ducting/highways. You can use zip ties for situations you might need as well, such as if you have one going a long way around your robot.