Who here likes their control system in 1 piece?

[Matt Reiland]

From the pictures in the gallary there are a ton of designs with wiring and the whole control system in plain open sight? That thing costs over a $1000 to replace. Anyone with their controls wide open ought to be buying lexan right now. Even inadvertant hits with a robot, goal grabber, or ball grabber can cause catastophic failures to these components.

I think the warrany automatically expires if you bring it over to first with a hunk of aluminum through it.

Please teams, for your sake, armor up a little on your first practice day this equipment costs too much to waste.

[GregT]

Ahh but armor weighs too much! Can't we just hit them harder then they hit us?

[Stephanie]

i totally agree. our wiring is pretty much exposed, and it could easily be inadvertantly torn apart by another bot. we're going to put a lexan shield around it ASAP before comps.

oh, that part abt the warranty. isn't it ironic that the label says "warranty automatically void if broken."? am i mistaken, or isn't that the purpose of the warranty, to replace it when it breaks?

[tenthirtythree]

Stephanie, warranties are designed to have loopholes --- yep, quite ironic.

Our wiring is actually pretty protected, but we're adding some "battle armor" just in case.

Thanks, Matt, for the extra "sense of urgency."

Damian "Chip" Eveland
#171 - Platteville, Wisconsin

[Katie Reynolds]

Originally posted by Stephanie
oh, that part abt the warranty. isn't it ironic that the label says "warranty automatically void if broken."? am i mistaken, or isn't that the purpose of the warranty, to replace it when it breaks?

Lol - Yea, the warrenty basically means "If it breaks and you try to fix it yourself, then the warrenty is void" ... not that they word it like that at all!

Our wiring and stuff is sheilded by our oh-so-reliable polycarb siding =) Nothing will be touching that - unless we want it to be touched!

- Katie

[Ian W.]

Originally posted by Stephanie

oh, that part abt the warranty. isn't it ironic that the label says "warranty automatically void if broken."? am i mistaken, or isn't that the purpose of the warranty, to replace it when it breaks?

this isn't talking about if another robot smashes into you and destroys the piece. under that sticker is a screw, and to take the unit apart, you must unsrcew that screw. but, if you take it apart, you might break it, so therefore, if you remove the sticker to look at the insides, you void the warrenty. believe me, we had this conversation one of those late nights.

[GregT]

hehe i believe it actually reads "Warranty void if broken"

The trick is to have them fix it BEFORE it breaks, it'll save you lots of money.

[Andrew Wyatt]

I don't know about a lot of teams, but armor for our control system was a high order priority.

Our control system is mounted to reenforced plexi and is covered by a 1/4 inch thick plate aluminum shell.

I'm relatively sure it'll bouce small caliber pistol hits.

our control system is also quick detachable, so that if it does break, we can sweep out the pieces and replace it with a backup.
I think it works well.

If you want to see it, feel free to stop by our pit at either the LA or SJ regionals.

[AdamT]

You guys have to remember that trhe control visible HAS to be easily visible for refs. This doesn't mean you don't protect them, but you've gotta be able to see it. As long as it's mounted and not right against the side, you should be fine...

[junkyarddawg]

Matt:

Right on the money, We even mounted are speed controllers on a piece of lexan and each end of the lexan is suspended in a half inch of foam in five directions. The fans on the speed controllers cannot take alot of abuse. We were going to mount our controller in the same fashion and just flat ran out of time, but we do have a .25" piece of lexan in front of our controller. I think the components most vulnerable to shock on the robot controller are the plug-ins, such as fuses, cable ect...

It might behoove everyone to add tape or something to keep fuses and cables from falling out from vibration.

Tim Gates
Team #288
RoboDawgs

[Tom Fairchild]

If your fuses are coming out from shocks or vibrations, I think that you're going to have bigger troubles than missing fuses. I can't speak for your bot, but I know that ours are fairly difficult to pull out by hand. PWMs on the control board though, those can be a pain. We had our right drive train fall out during a match at VCU last year.

~Tom Fairchild~

[junkyarddawg]

Matt:

My apologies for not including this in the post. We did use rubber shock mounts to mount our Robot Controller to the bot. Not the best, but it is something that other teams can do if they have at least a half inch to give in front of thier controller. And this can be done in 15-45 minutes at the competition. They are considered a fastner and small parts sell them as well, or use the ones that came with your air compressor.

JunkYardDawg

[junkyarddawg]

Tom:

We are not having any trouble, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And it breaks my heart to see teams that are struggling already have to struggle with a myriad of nuances that could have been prevented. Also, our controller is mounted vertically and facing the direction that the bot travels. Most people would not have quessed that the lever on the 60 amp breaker had enough inertia to switch states when the bot collided with another bot, but it did.

Good Luck:
Tim Gates