pic: Battery connector.....

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by MrBasse

I'm suprised that nobody has said anything about the fact that a robot that can do that repeatedly is designed wrong. If you stay within the limits of your supplied hardware you wouldn't have this issue. Nowhere in the rules does it say you have to draw the amperage that you are. Would it make for a slightly les competitive machine? Maybe. Would it reduce the risk of melting connectors and destroying components? Definitely.

It just seems to me the a lower amperage rated connector is something that would result in an engineering challenge. I'm pretty sure that is what most of us are here for.

This seems comparable to someone complaining that their drill press doesn't work very well as a mill...

It's a safety issue. In ANY electrical system, you have safety measures designed to prevent this from happening. In our system, that is supposed to be the 120amp main breaker. FIRST has determined that drawing excess of 120amps continuous causes an unsafe condition and requires the robot shut down. What Andrew has shown, and has been repeated on several other robots, is that under certain circumstances the main battery connector fails before the main breaker, thus circumventing the entire safety system as it is designed.