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#1
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Re: How to power Mini-PC on robot?
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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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#2
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Re: How to power Mini-PC on robot?
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#3
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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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#4
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Re: How to power Mini-PC on robot?
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#5
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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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#6
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Re: How to power Mini-PC on robot?
It's a custom circuit. There are already rules.
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#7
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Re: How to power Mini-PC on robot?
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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