New main battery connectors allowed

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Ken Streeter

Ours are definitely taking more than 15 foot-pounds of force!

How many regular pounds of force would that be?

[JDL]

Oops I meant pounds, not sure why I put foot in front.

But that is just the minimum spec. Every power pole I've ever installed took a great deal more when new.

[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by Ether

How many regular pounds of force would that be?

Oops! That's what I get for hastily using the same terminology from the prior post without thinking about it...

Of course, they should be "pounds" (lbf) of force, since foot-pounds are not a unit of force, but of energy or work. Oops!

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Ken,
There should be no difference in the pink connectors. We have not tried mating yet, but I will put that on the list for tonight's meeting. When I inspected out KOP last week, the pink had the same contacts used in previous shipments of the KOP. The standard reel supplied, machine terminated terminals.

[Sohaib]

Originally Posted by Ken Streeter

This question is only tangentially related to this thread, but it didn't seem that my question really warrants a new thread, either...

Is there any difference between the (old) red SB50 connectors and the (new) pink SB50 connectors in the 2015 KoP other than the color?

Two of our new battery cables (with pink SB50 connectors) from the 2015 KoP, when connected together, require herculean force (needed to mount one in a vice) to disconnect. We don't see anything immediately wrong with either of them. We've never had this happen with two of these before.

Any suggestions on what to look for to see what is wrong? The contacts appeared to be properly oriented and in the correct position.

Can confirm, had the same problem. On the Andymark website it states that the pink connector mates with the red SB50, nothing mentioned about the pink one.

[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by Sohaib

Can confirm, had the same problem. On the Andymark website it states that the pink connector mates with the red SB50, nothing mentioned about the pink one.

I've been looking on the Anderson Power Products (APP) web site for a data sheet or anything that describes the pink SB50A connector (as mentioned on the FIRSTChoice web site) and can't find the pink housing described anywhere. I wonder if it is a new product from APP?

The data sheets I have been able to find on the APP site describe many different SB50 connector colors (Yellow, Orange, Red, Gray, Blue, Green, Black) but have no mention of pink.

I don't have one of the pink connectors with me right now. I wonder if maybe they're not a genuine APP product?

I should probably also mention that we only seemed to have the "stuck connectors" problem when connecting two pink ones together. Connecting one red to one pink seemed to work okay.

[Jon Stratis]

I believe the pink ones are a special run of the connectors for breast cancer awareness, thus the pink color.

[FrankJ]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

I believe the pink ones are a special run of the connectors for breast cancer awareness, thus the pink color.

That makes sense. I just assumed they were a off color batch of red.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Ken Streeter

I've been looking on the Anderson Power Products (APP) web site for a data sheet or anything that describes the pink SB50A connector (as mentioned on the FIRSTChoice web site) and can't find the pink housing described anywhere. I wonder if it is a new product from APP?

The data sheets I have been able to find on the APP site describe many different SB50 connector colors (Yellow, Orange, Red, Gray, Blue, Green, Black) but have no mention of pink.

I'd never heard of a pink SB either. (That's why I had to edit the post above, per FIRST's note in the manual.)

Originally Posted by Ken Streeter

I don't have one of the pink connectors with me right now. I wonder if maybe they're not a genuine APP product?

The clones from TE definitely say TE or AMP on the side. I don't know if clones falsely marked as Anderson products exist, but I would imagine that's a possibility. Does anyone know which supplier FIRST uses for the SB connectors, or if Anderson provides them directly?

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

I believe the pink ones are a special run of the connectors for breast cancer awareness, thus the pink color.

I hope not. It would be idiotic to violate their own colour code—which is supposed to be indicative of the function of the connector for error-proofing purposes—in order to promote something with no plausible connection to the product.

More likely they (intentionally or not) ran a batch of SBs using the resin intended for the pink PowerPoles.


If anyone can take an end-on photograph of the pink one alongside a red one, we can see if the keying looks identical. Look at this for comparison photos of the other ones.

[Christopher149]

I tested 857's pink connectors (well, two anyway). Pink on the 2015 KOP battery to an existing red connector on a battery charger was an easy (but not loose) removal. Pink-on-pink was stiff to put together and take apart, but it came apart okay with some rocking side to side.

I was wondering if they donated a batch with a mistake in pigmentation, thus pink.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

I tried mating connectors last night from the KOP. While they were hard to mate and pull apart, they didn't seem to be any more difficult than other new connectors in the past.

[dtengineering]

I'm helping a rookie team here in BC this year. They got all pink connectors in their KoP. The pink connectors were a very stiff fit... they went together nicely but were very difficult to pull apart. This past weekend the battery was stuck to the robot so hard that we had to disconnect the cables from the 120A breaker and PDP and use a vise to get them apart.

I dug up an old, red, connector and it worked great with the pink connectors. But the Pink battery connectors that the team received were too tight to be swapped out during competition.

Jason

[cglrcng]

While keying of both connectors should be checked (and possibly only keying 1 pink w/ 1 red, since they seem to separate easier), the following is a solution to think about for safety purposes at least if more than 15 lbs of force to separate is necessary. At $3.00 each they are not too far out of the ballpark as far as costs and if the end that goes to the breaker is attached to the battery box by bolt attachment (as we have been doing the last few years), only 1 handle per battery attached Anderson SB50 is necessary. A small price to pay to save those students hands I would think. Just a suggestion. As, If I had to use a vice to disconnect one, I don't think I'd be reusing the connector again that was squeezed in that vice.

http://www.powerwerx.com/powerpole-a...andle-kit.html

They actually make a kit (that makes it easy), to attach it easily to that alum. or sheet metal battery box too! (though we usually just use 2 through bolts/nuts w/ countersunk heads on the battery side).

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Anderson-SB5.../270413183290?

[Monochron]

Some more anecdotal evidence for you, our pink - pink matings are very difficult to pull apart. So far only 2 students and a couple of mentors have had the strength to separate them. Kind of limits us.

[cglrcng]

Easy solution, use only Pink or red on batteries, red only on robots. The red ones are avail everywhere and the plastic mating SB50 connectors are easily disassembled and traded out using a simple pick.

SAFETY NOTES: Just make sure that all (+) & (-) reconnection symbols for polarity are observed and double checked upon reassembly.....ALWAYS CHECK THE NEW ONES ALSO as there were some problems last year as some came assembled w/ the opposite polarity installed in the KOP!

*It is what we get for a simple easy battery switchout process and wonderfully generous donated parts. We should be able to live with it. Just do not mix pink w/ pink Anderson SB50's.