remote control air regulator

[wireties]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

That assumes that the ground connection fails in the "right" place to remove it from the regulator as well as from the resistive divider. By proper design of the actual wire routing, that particular behavior on a loss of ground can be assured, but it requires more thought than just the obvious pair of resistors.

How does a connection to the reference voltage fail other than by opening up? A zener clamping the voltage in the control circuit would be a feel good addition - can't hurt.

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Oh, I can imagine quite a bit more fancy than that. I don't even have to imagine battery voltage ending up on the analog signal -- I have actually seen it happen..

One can imagine wild failure modes with most parts of the fail-safe circuitry on the robot. I remind you the biggest fail-safe mechanism we have is implemented in software!

Recently I had the top come off breakers exposing the fuse. We can go back and forth all day and night about extraordinary failure modes. But one has to pick a prudent affordable safe approach.

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

You can't just invoke the laws of physics and say nothing will go wrong. You have to see where the laws take you when your assumptions are violated. The robot rules regarding pneumatic systems are very specific, and they do a good job keeping pressures at the appropriate levels unless many things go wrong at once. I don't see an electronically-controlled primary regulator managing to fit in that framework, because it can let full pressure through with just a single failure.

I can indeed "invoke the laws of physics" and assert that the control circuit meets criteria for a fail-safe circuit in this application. I'm not ready to go there, just wanted some opinions. And I appreciate your opinion.

With respect the lack of specificity in the rules is the genesis of this thread. Where does it say the adjustment is mechanical? Did I miss that? There have been a few good pneumatic-related Q&As this season that resulted in corrections to the manual.

[novamx3]

As a person who sells I-P/E-P regulators.. I would say you'd have a really tough time finding one that's COTS for less than $400. Typically $600-$900 so this is a moot point. Clippard makes one that is ~$60 but the flow is so low that it's, likely, not applicable.

The EPP4 (which is 1/2" ported so also not legal from that standpoint) is ~$900 list price.

[novamx3]

Originally Posted by novamx3

As a person who sells I-P/E-P regulators.. I would say you'd have a really tough time finding one that's COTS for less than $400. Typically $600-$900 so this is a moot point. Clippard makes one that is ~$60 but the flow is so low that it's, likely, not applicable.

The EPP4 (which is 1/2" ported so also not legal from that standpoint) is ~$900 list price.

Sorry, it's also available in 1/4"NPT, my mistake.

Also, I should say that their might be a product that has a retail price of $399.99 or less. But not one that I'm aware of.

[pmangels17]

If you're looking for a good solution, Team 358 solved this problem in 2012 mechanically. The details are on their website, but basically, from what I remember, they had a regulator set to 60 psi as a failsafe, and then attached a secondary regulator to a window motor (and I'm assuming some sort of sensor) to turn the knob and adjust the working pressure on their catapult.

[wireties]

Originally Posted by novamx3

Sorry, it's also available in 1/4"NPT, my mistake.

Also, I should say that their might be a product that has a retail price of $399.99 or less. But not one that I'm aware of.

Yeah, it was something in my inbox about them expanding the line that prompted me to look more closely. ~$400 is too rich for us anyways!

Thanks for the info!