Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle
If you will post a log file or two where your issue presented itself, I'll be happy to see what its info supports. I completely agree with Frank that your radio should not do that and is at least one of your issues. As you well know, the robots are not one-trick ponies, and there are plenty of opportunities for Murphy to introduce himself and provide you with a problem to solve at the actual event.
To the comment on the Weidmuller connectors, I've CSA-ed two events already this season, and plenty last season, and the connectors that are almost always causing "connection" problems are nuts and bolts and sometimes barrel connectors.
About 70% of the robots that lose power are due to the battery terminal connections or the main breaker connection (nuts and bolts). The input to the PDP is far less common, but I see loose ones at each event. The radio barrel jacks are probably next on the list and sound more like this robot, where the RSL never goes out, but the robot is waiting on its radio. Next are stray wires causing a short at any of the Weidmuller or the roboRIO screw terminals. Next is a wire being pulled out of the screw terminal, and finally, are wires fraying and/or breaking at the Weidmuller connection. I totally agree with your input on wire management and strain relief, but I'm not sure what aspect causes you to call them finicky?
By the way, some of those connectors are made by Wago.
Greg McKaskle
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I find that, if done properly, their connections generally hold, but it is very easy for them to not catch on and fall out. It is also hard to figure out how much to strip the wires, because often times it helps to do it excessively and bunch up the wire inside, but that results in bare wire sticking out that can caused shorts.
Over the past 2 years I have seen 2 connections fail from them. One was very clearly a bad connection from the beginning because it was a thin wire, but thankfully it wasn't very important to our robots functionality. The second was the wire to our compressor, and we don't think that it was inserted poorly, but we aren't sure.
In the end, I wouldn't mind using those connectors for non-essential components. However, I would feel a lot more comfortable if the roborio and radio were powered by terminals clamped by screws or something similar rather than a connector that averages about 3-5 failed pull tests before we finally get a reliable connection. The fact that you haven't seen many failed Weidmullers puts my mind at ease; maybe I am just underestimating how many teams properly test all their wiring.
I actually see no issue about the sentence, but then im still in college and only half way edumacated, i am only eduma right now. - Alex Cormier [more] 
27-03-2016, 20:48
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