Tolerance of Breakers

[Ben Mitchell]

I've heard that it takes 2 minutes or more at full amps to trip the circuit breakers. It this true?

Can teams last for 2 minutes or more while pushing the breakers to the limit??

In other words, can a robot push its drive to the max, and not die in a fit of breaker tripping glory?

Will breakers tripping be a major issue this year (I know I said that in my other post, but whatever)

Also, does tolerance vary from breaker to breaker??

Thanks

--Ben Mitchell

[thedillybar]

FIRST has said the breaker will provide 100 amps for over 2 minutes. It will vary only slightly from breaker to breaker.

As far as pushing your drive to the max, whether or not you're going to trip breakers depends on what motors you are using and how you have them geared. The easiest way is to get this done as soon as possible so you can test it and see what it does.

Tripping breakers will only be a big deal in the competitions if you don't have enough driver practice time.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

There are two types of breakers on the robot. The main breaker/power switch will withstand >200 amp surges of an intermittant variety but is shock sensitive. (i.e. a good hit to one side of the breaker will set it to "off") Do not hard mount it to robot frame and you should have no problems.
The plug-in breakers are a temperature type device. Currents flowing through the breaker heat up the mechanism until it changes shape and "opens". When it cools down, the shape returns to normal and "closes". With high currents this "open/close" cycle can happen very rapidly (several times a second).
So with that knowledge in hand here are the failure modes...Main breaker open will cause no robot function and no rotating light. (remember the rotating light must come on when the robot is enabled or attached to the tether cable per robot rules) Small breaker open will result in intermittant motor operation (looks like something is "bumping" robot and occasional noise from breaker.
Good Luck All