Pneumatic Restrictions & Improvments

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Mk.32

My apologies for mis-understanding and not being clear.
What I meant was was switching between two off board compressors, to make sure none of the over heated but only using one actively at a time. While having no on board. My team had to do this due to the enormous (5gal) tank we had and we had deliberate over the "one and only one" rule.

But if a team were to have a on board and then disconnect it, and use an off board properly wired into the robot to pre-fill before a match so the on board stays cool during the match; I would think this is legal? Since air is only being provided by one compressor at a time that is wired legally.

R79 did not include any wording indicating "at a time".

R79

Compressed air on the ROBOT must be provided by one and only one compressor. Compressor specifications may not exceed nominal 12VDC, 1.05 cfm flow rate.

The wording of the rule is straight forward and strict - all of the compressed air in use on the robot during a match must come from one and only one compressor. You can't mix sources between on-board and off-board, or charge halfway with one compressor and finish it off with another.

Personally, I think this rule could stand to be expanded a little to allow more variation in how pneumatic systems are charged, but as it's written it's very strict. Thinking about the reasoning behind it, I can see safety being one reason, fair play being another (not every team can afford to buy 2+ compressors just to charge their system), and good design being a third (If you can't charge your system without overheating your compressor, then you may want to re-think the design of the system and the constraints you have to work within, rather than just "throw more compressors at it" - not intended to be directed at you in particular, alternating compressors from one match to the other so they have time to cool down is certainly a valid engineering solution).