Al's 2016 Inspection Thread

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

OK,
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2. Loose #6 terminals (on the PDP, main breaker or battery) will produce brownout or loss of primary electrical power. If it moves, it is resistive. Even tight connections will loosen in this game. Check your batteries now.
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7. Check all of the above after every match!

Having now attended 5 events in 5 weeks, this has been a killer. Please, please, add these to pit check lists.
As an LRI, once everyone has passed, this is an item I try to verify on every single robot. I typically do this in the queue before matches.

My tug is not terribly hard, but teams I have specifically tugged connections have had a failure later on (IE a couple matches later). This means that historically decent connections are coming loose. Though on occasion it has been due to teams disconnecting and reconnecting the breaker)

Starting week 4 this year I take a 7/16 wrench with me. To help tighten lugs on main breaker.
I have been in serious debate on whether or not to bring a small torque wrench and torqueing each of those leads to the spec (or roughly 75-80% of max torque callout). I may end up doing that for MSC/Worlds.