Tips for new 'Head of Electronics'

[robotsarecool]

1) Take your time to do your wiring correctly and be very organized, even though it might take a while, it'll save you in you in the long run.
2)Color coding tape is your friend, it'll save you from tracing wires from one end of the robot to the other.
3)Be very careful of your sensors, I can't tell you how many limit switches we've crushed and how many encoder wires got snapped.
4)Make sure to check all your connections and make sure you tape your anderson connections. There have been quite a few matches where we were rendered partially useless because of a lose connection to a motor controller.
5) Make a checklist for pit crew so that connections are checked between every match.
Also just out of curiosity what sort of training projects will you be doing in the off season as head of electrical? I'm always looking for ideas

[lethc]

This probably goes without saying but make heavy, heavy use of the wiring guide FIRST provides you. It'll tell you where to hook everything up and give you important details like recommended/minimum wire gauge.

I'll also second clean, neat and most importantly pre-planned wiring. Place components in areas that minimize wire runs and make sure you allocate enough space for all the actual wires.

Wiring is fun and it's one of the most important parts of the robot. Unfortunately there's not much glory in doing it well, but it can be catastrophic if something goes wrong. Have fun with it and ask lots of questions if you're unsure about something.

[stavinski]

Thank you everybody!
I was wondering how big you think the electrical team should be?

[Chief Hedgehog]

Originally Posted by stavinski

Thank you everybody!
I was wondering how big you think the electrical team should be?

In a perfect world you should have one lead mentor to oversee the wiring and at least two members doing the work. You need at least one lead member and then another to check the work. Try to create a system where you have a senior leading and a junior/sophomore as the secondary member.

And all of these people need to start the season knowing the capabilities of the components and also communicating with the strategy, programming, and CAD teams on a weekly basis.

On 4607 we do point to point drawings so that we can talk the other members through the process. Oh - an electrical engineer to look over your energy budget is key!

[Fajrero_viro]

Probably the most helpful thing I've tried to do in my two years of electrical lead is labeling wires.

Take a labelmaker or some making tape and fold it around the wire, so a "tag" shows with some writing on it. Put a tag near where the wires plug into. It helps with wire tracking and organization.

[natejo99]

2016 was my first year as student electrical lead on my team. I learned that wire loom, zip ties, and adhesive zip tie blocks are your best friends for keeping wire organized. Labeling wires is also extremely important and will make system repairs and component replacements so much easier.

As for the size of an electrical team: last year our electrical team had about 7 members. 2 of them were mainly programmers, but helped out with electrical as well. I found that this is way too many people. Ideally, I'd say that an electrical team should consist of the student lead, as well as about 2-3 other dedicated electrical students. I found that there (generally) is only enough room for a maximum of 2 people to be working on the robot at a time, so the other members of the electrical team should have something else to work on (be that a side project, organizing your electrical space, etc.). Hope this helps!

[Tungrus]

1. Secure all wires
2. secure and insulate cables to battery
3. Check main breaker terminals before every match, tighten if necessary, and insulate them
4. Ring LEDS come with skinny white wires, replace them with 14 or 18 AWG wires. Skinny white wires easily get stripped resulting in shorts
5. Stress relieve soldered wires
6. Secure power cable (we used electrical tape), so it's firmly in place

[ASD20]

Originally Posted by Tungrus

3. Check main breaker terminals before every match, tighten if necessary, and insulate them

Don't just check the nuts on the breaker. Also check the crimps. We lost power a match this year because one of our main breaker crimps was loose.

[Munchskull]

1.Zip wire is your friend! Don'the be afraid to spend the extra money for it.
2. Anderson connectors are amazing but pull test every single one.
3. Heat shrink don't tape. Any where you endup taping is a place where you should have put heat shrink.
4. New PWM wires every year! Premade pwms should not be transferred from year to year. Either buy or make new wires.
5. Wire wrap is great, end of story, keeping wires in mesh wire wrap will let you group them by system and protect them from minor nicks and internal breakage.
6. Plan component placement. Your design team should work with you not only on what area electron is go, but the exact placement of them. That way the drill the holes and bring you the bolts!
7. Crimp or solder not both! You waste time if you crimp and solder. Crimping provides a cold weld-like bondage that is mechanically robust, by soldering it you bring it to ~200C and endurance stress relieving the joint which unfortunately does the initial crimp.

[ThaddeusMaximus]

1. Make sure you are as much of a part of mechanical design as your own department. Electronics are not the end goal- electronics enable good code to control good mechanical systems. Mechanicals oftentimes think things like "voltage drop isn't a big deal", "Backlash isn't an issue", "we can just strap a potentiometer on this", etc... they're oftentimes wrong. There's mechanical design aspects that should be influenced by electrical capabilities. You need to have input. It will save you time and headaches. Mechanical needs to know the possibilities out there and your limitations. (This also goes for code.)

2. Rail mechanical for moar electronics space. This has been beat to a pulp but yeah.

3. Work really closely with code too (are you noticing a trend here?). so many issues are caused because of incorrect hookups, unchecked hookups, etc.

4. Don't memorize the rules. Refer constantly to the book. Look over and make sure everything is code. There's no reason to cut corners.

Electronics is really middleware. You have to operate as such.

[PaulChanno88]

Organize everything before the next season begins so you know where everything is and how much you have. We have a big closet filled with electrical stuff and every year for the past 2 years we clean it out and organize it into boxes and write the category name on the box and put all of the boxes in the closet. We usually do the organization mid-December. We also do toolboxes and we label every wire and we make sure all crimps are good. The most important thing I'd say is to be very organized and consistent.

[JamesCH95]

Ratcheting crimpers with the right die for all your applications that are properly adjusted and tested. Frankly everything else is secondary to getting your terminations right. This won't be super cheap, but it's hard to beat terminations where the wire winds up solid and fully cold-welded to the terminal!

[Waz]

Some great suggestions here. I would just add that you should take a look at this thread too (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh....php?t=145244).

Steve

[Hgree56]

After three years as the Electrical Director of our team, the most important thing I have learned is: Do NOT solder over electronics!!!!

We had to solder something on our robot this year right before Elims and we lost our first match because we got solder in our RoboRIO. Don't do that!!

And Congrats on your role with your team! Good luck this up coming season!

[lorykzarr]

If you can afford it, try getting some wire trough from a local industrial supplier. It lets you very easily hide large bundles of wire and allows you to route all of your wires through one area. Also, if you have bad wire strippers, use a reasonably sharp boxcutter/knife to strip wires. Extend the blade a decent amount, hold the wire you want to strip on your thumb and roll it around on the blade until the insulation is cut. Then you can pull the stuff off. It works great for most wire sizes.