Anderson Power Pole for motors

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

The ultrasonically welded housings are great. I'd never buy the individual housings, because there aren't many scenarios where you need to keep the + and the - wire separate. Plus you can use the hole where the roll-pin normally goes to run a zip-tie through for locking.

We use the individual housings and we never use the roll pins. Zip ties going across the backs of the housings have worked fine for us. Some of the reasons I like individual ones, they are normally cheaper, you can have multiple colors, and if you need to quickly invert a motor direction you can do it without pulling the contacts out of the housings.

I've been using them since I started in FRC in 2003 and wouldn't want to use any other connector.

I bought some green and yellow ones to use with the CAN wires this year, we'll see how that goes.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

The ultrasonically welded housings are great. I'd never buy the individual housings, because there aren't many scenarios where you need to keep the + and the - wire separate. Plus you can use the hole where the roll-pin normally goes to run a zip-tie through for locking.

Ouch! for what they cost, I'd have a kid superglue them if them being bonded is that important to you.

[droswell]

I just bought a bunch of Green, Yellow, and white housings from Powerwerx to match the wires on the speed controllers. They have a whole spectrum of colors, so between mixing terminal rotation and colors you can make different connectors for each motor, sensor, etc.

We are hoping to use the andersons for quick disconnects for our CAN bus as well - anyone see an issue with that?

Originally Posted by philso

You can assemble these with the contacts in various orientations (--, -|, ||,...) so that you can have "special circuits" that can not be plugged into other circuits. I don't recall how many combinations can be achieved so just play with the housings when you get them.

It will take a fair amount of force to un-mate the housings. You can also use a small screwdriver to disengage the retaining tongue and remove the contact from the housing, allowing the housings to be reused.

[adciv]

We've been using the powerpoles for several years now. We do not zip tie or use anything other than the natural friction between the connectors. The only issue we've had is the occasional plugging the wrong things together. We've never had anything come undone during competition. Mind you, we also make sure our robot wiring is fairly neat and well secured to the robot. We avoid birds nests on the robot.

Originally Posted by droswell

We are hoping to use the andersons for quick disconnects for our CAN bus as well - anyone see an issue with that?

It's overkill and very large, but this is FIRST. The PP15 crimp is for 16-20 AWG wire, just make sure you don't try using 22 AWG or the crimps won't work. During beta testing, we used 19AWG wire (I didn't even realize 19 existed until just now) and have had no issues. This included running it through an offseason competition.

I'm considering using some new connectors from molex but they won't be available until March, so next season?

[droswell]

We ordered the 15A connectors for the CAN bus wires and 18 gauge stranded hookup wire. I thought it was overkill, but if you're going to do it, you may as well overdo it

Originally Posted by adciv

We've been using the powerpoles for several years now. We do not zip tie or use anything other than the natural friction between the connectors. The only issue we've had is the occasional plugging the wrong things together. We've never had anything come undone during competition. Mind you, we also make sure our robot wiring is fairly neat and well secured to the robot. We avoid birds nests on the robot.



It's overkill and very large, but this is FIRST. The PP15 crimp is for 16-20 AWG wire, just make sure you don't try using 22 AWG or the crimps won't work. During beta testing, we used 19AWG wire (I didn't even realize 19 existed until just now) and have had no issues. This included running it through an offseason competition.

I'm considering using some new connectors from molex but they won't be available until March, so next season?

[Levansic]

Originally Posted by droswell

I just bought a bunch of Green, Yellow, and white ...

We are hoping to use the andersons for quick disconnects for our CAN bus as well - anyone see an issue with that?

and

Originally Posted by droswell

We ordered the 15A connectors for the CAN bus wires and 18 gauge stranded hookup wire. I thought it was overkill, but if you're going to do it, you may as well overdo it

I've been thinking about this for the last few days. I really wish there was a 50% size PowerPole housing with ~5 amp contacts, for use on the CAN/PWM wires on the new Talons. The polarized but non-gendered PowerPoles are well-suited to the CAN daisy chaining, and for color coding the ends of PWM cables. Anderson doesn't make a smaller housing, and I've been unable to find something similar from any other manufacturer.

We've been using PowerPoles for the last two years, color coding pigtails attached to spikes and jaguars for quick swaps (red/black on supply green/gray on loads). They are awesome for this, but it just seems wrong to use the same connectors for high current power and low current signaling. Our friend Murphy has shown us time and again that there is no limit to what a new and under-mentored student can plug together incorrectly.

[adciv]

We've been using PowerPoles for the last two years, color coding pigtails attached to spikes and jaguars for quick swaps (red/black on supply green/gray on loads). They are awesome for this, but it just seems wrong to use the same connectors for high current power and low current signaling. Our friend Murphy has shown us time and again that there is no limit to what a new and under-mentored student can plug together incorrectly.

Oh, I've done that myself. I have this bad habit of connecting the output of a TALON to the output of the PDB or some other motor controller. I may try using your color coding change this year.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by adciv

I'm considering using some new connectors from molex but they won't be available until March, so next season?

Yes, those look good! And with the 2.50 mm pitch, we can probably adapt them to 0.1" pin tech for the relatively short runs.

[GeeTwo]

Use different colors on the battery side of the speed controller/spike (e.g. red/black) than on the motor side (e.g. white/blue).

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

What's the advantage of mis-matched colors? We used all red-black last year, matching the wires. We were thinking of using the colors as labels, but we would have used the same color housing on both sides to ensure we made the correct connection, saving some sticky labels. The biggest reason we didn't do this is it would require that we re-terminate a motor to use it in a different location on the robot; last year we had generic spares with connectors pre-crimped, and just had to add a label.

In re-reading, I've answered my own question. The point here is not to have the connectors between the PDB and the controller look like the ones between the controller and the motor. That never occurred to me as a problem, because we never use connectors between the PDB and the controller. Except for Ultimate Ascent, where we were jamming too many features into too small a space, we've managed to put the PDB and all of the motor controllers on the same control board, and run these wires directly. Another important thing to remember about connectors of any type is to remember that they are inherently a compromise - giving up some of the reliability of a continuous connection for the sake of maintainability, flexibility, or convenience.

GO TEAMS!

[StephenNutt]

Our team purchased a shrink tubbing label printer for this year. Hopefully all wires will now be clearly marked to simplify tracing and reduce the chance of a connector being plugged into the wrong connector.

How many connectors do you typically have on a robot? I believe we generally only have 1 per motor.

Steve

[Peter Johnson]

Originally Posted by Levansic

I've been thinking about this for the last few days. I really wish there was a 50% size PowerPole housing with ~5 amp contacts, for use on the CAN/PWM wires on the new Talons. The polarized but non-gendered PowerPoles are well-suited to the CAN daisy chaining, and for color coding the ends of PWM cables. Anderson doesn't make a smaller housing, and I've been unable to find something similar from any other manufacturer.

During beta test, we used the 2-pin 0.1" latching polarized connectors from Hansen Hobbies (http://www.hansenhobbies.com/product...nlpconnectors/) for CAN bus cabling. The pin size and spacing are the same as PWM. The housings are a tiny bit bigger, but the latching and polarization features won me over. Hanson also sells 3-pin versions for those who want to make their Talon SRX'es dual use. We're planning to use these connectors on our robot in 2015.

[Levansic]

Originally Posted by adciv

I'm considering using some new connectors from molex but they won't be available until March, so next season?

I completely glossed over this, but that looks like what I'd like to use, except for not being able to color code them like the power poles. I guess Sharpies would work. Bummer that they are unobtainium until March.

[Gary Dillard]

We've been having problems with the 12AWG stranded wire on the Victor SP's being too large for the PowerPole PP30 12-14 AWG contacts. We haven't had any problems with other 12AWG wire - has anyone else run into this?

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

We've been having problems with the 12AWG stranded wire on the Victor SP's being too large for the PowerPole PP30 12-14 AWG contacts. We haven't had any problems with other 12AWG wire - has anyone else run into this?

It's a common problem that finely stranded wire has a considerably larger outer diameter than the solid round wire of the same gauge. I've seen that issue with other crimp connectors.

Maybe you could try Anderson's open-topped crimps instead of the ones with the closed barrel? Anderson sells slightly larger "super flex" connectors in some sizes that are intended to solve this specific problem.

Alternatively, it wouldn't be the end of the world to lose a few strands out of a 259-strand wire (if that's what they're using) over a short distance. The impact in terms of resistance would be negligible.