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Unread 24-01-2017, 13:03
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Re: How to power Mini-PC on robot?

Quote:
Originally Posted by rich2202 View Post
A COTS device that includes a battery is an easy bright line to enforce. If you allow teams to install any battery, then what are the rules on what can get a battery? If a fire starts because a custom battery circuit shorted out, how do you turn it off?
How do you turn off a laptop battery that's shorted out and started a fire? It's certainly happened before.

People aren't asking for "any battery" to be legal, just USB batteries of some shape or form. These are common devices, with a known output plug, voltage, and current. A restriction saying "COTS batteries that output 5V power over USB at 2 amps or less and 10,000mAh or less" for example would be reasonably narrow, wouldn't result in these strange nightmare slippery-slope kids-wired-a-battery-at-home-using-bare-copper scenarios people keep jumping to, and would fix this and many other problems.
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Unread 24-01-2017, 13:13
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Re: How to power Mini-PC on robot?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris is me View Post
How do you turn off a laptop battery that's shorted out and started a fire? It's certainly happened before.

People aren't asking for "any battery" to be legal, just USB batteries of some shape or form. These are common devices, with a known output plug, voltage, and current. A restriction saying "COTS batteries that output 5V power over USB at 2 amps or less and 10,000mAh or less" for example would be reasonably narrow, wouldn't result in these strange nightmare slippery-slope kids-wired-a-battery-at-home-using-bare-copper scenarios people keep jumping to, and would fix this and many other problems.
Chris, your interpretation of what's been posted here is very different from mine.

Quote:
Originally Posted by marshall View Post
I'd like to see one of two things:
A) Say that teams can use batteries for computing devices provided it is done safely and doesn't interface with the control or motors for the robot. This can be demonstrated by having the team turn off the robot and see what is still running.

or

B) Make the only legal source of power on the robot to be the ROBOT battery.
There certainly is room for the rule to be expanded by the GDC without getting too crazy (such as allowing USB battery packs design to work with an arduino), but that's not what people have been pushing for in this thread.
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Unread 24-01-2017, 12:45
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Re: How to power Mini-PC on robot?

I think it's vaguely clear that by "integral", they mean, like, the battery isn't an external device that plugs into the power supply port in lieu of a regular power supply. A laptop not only has a cutout for a battery, but a port purpose built for its use, and hardware integral to the laptop to regulate its charge. I think it's not THAT hard to understand the Q&A on this.

All of that being said, I think the rule is stupid and pointless and has no business making this distinction. USB batteries for custom circuits should be allowed. I know they aren't, so I won't use them, but they should be. It's silly that they aren't allowed, and it arbitrarily makes some solutions (more expensive ones!) better than others (more accessible ones!).

Rules for USB batteries don't have to be complicated. Allow a USB powered custom circuit to connect to it using standard ports and cables only. Make it like pneumatics where you can't modify the cables or the battery or use custom wiring or whatever. Maybe even regulate the size of the USB battery if you must. This is not prohibitively difficult.
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Unread 24-01-2017, 12:51
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Re: How to power Mini-PC on robot?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris is me View Post
I think it's vaguely clear that by "integral", they mean, like, the battery isn't an external device that plugs into the power supply port in lieu of a regular power supply. A laptop not only has a cutout for a battery, but a port purpose built for its use, and hardware integral to the laptop to regulate its charge. I think it's not THAT hard to understand the Q&A on this.

All of that being said, I think the rule is stupid and pointless and has no business making this distinction. USB batteries for custom circuits should be allowed. I know they aren't, so I won't use them, but they should be. It's silly that they aren't allowed, and it arbitrarily makes some solutions (more expensive ones!) better than others (more accessible ones!).

Rules for USB batteries don't have to be complicated. Allow a USB powered custom circuit to connect to it using standard ports and cables only. Make it like pneumatics where you can't modify the cables or the battery or use custom wiring or whatever. Maybe even regulate the size of the USB battery if you must. This is not prohibitively difficult.
No no, we can't have common sense here! We must all argue with Marshall about hypothetical rules he made up to help explain what kind of answer he was after from the Q&A people and their silly actual rules.
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Unread 24-01-2017, 12:22
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Re: How to power Mini-PC on robot?

I understand what you want, but the rule is not written that way. That certainly could change in the future, but there's a whole world of safety related stuff that has to be taken into consideration.

If a team is improvising a battery and power system for a computer, do there need to be rules around wire gauge and breakers for that system? Do we need to check the system for grounding to the frame? Do wires have to be properly color coded? It's a whole can of worms you would be opening up here.

Allowing integral batteries solves that problem. GO PRO cameras can use their integral batteries without worry about burning up wiring or shorting out. Laptops can use their integral batteries while avoiding those worries as well.

So, FIRST really has a choice... have a rule written like it is in order to ensure batteries for COTS devices are implemented safely, or add another section to the rule book and another dozen rules to regulate what teams can and can't do. Personally, as an inspector, I prefer being able to rule on this simply without having to dig through a bunch of different rules for a situation that doesn't really come up all that often at events.
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Unread 24-01-2017, 12:25
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Re: How to power Mini-PC on robot?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Stratis View Post
If a team is improvising a battery and power system for a computer, do there need to be rules around wire gauge and breakers for that system?
It's a custom circuit. There are already rules.
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Unread 24-01-2017, 12:38
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Re: How to power Mini-PC on robot?

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Originally Posted by marshall View Post
It's a custom circuit. There are already rules.
If we were to allow batteries like you want, please point out, in the current rules for custom circuits, what would stop me from putting a battery equivalent in capacity to the robot battery on board to power a custom circuit, and wire from that battery to the circuit with 28 gauge wire? Can you even pretend that situation should be allowed?

You would NEED rules just as complicated as our current power distribution rules for custom circuits if you allowed improvised powering of custom circuits from random batteries. For the sake of safety there just isn't any way around that.
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