New Robot Electrical Parts

[Mr. Lim]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Ok Ladies and Gentlemen,
There were complaints and comments about the hardware used for electrical this year. I would like to get some suggestions on NEW electrical parts that might be worthwhile suggesting for use next year. If there is a wiring block, connector, fuse panel, terminal or battery insulator, etc., you would like to see provided in the kit or required for use on next year's robot, please list it here with links to the manufacturer and/or supplier. I personally liked the distro block and want to see it back but there may be a better device out there. If you know of something, let us know. We don't have that much time before plans need to be finalized so let us know soon.

2004 was the first year I had the opportunity to wire up a robot. I was very pleased at how complete the kit was.

The only thing I really wished came in the kit was a few lengths of heatshrink tubing (red and black, 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" diameter) and some split flex tubing to keep everything nice and neat.

What would be SUPER nice is a big bag of 3-pin PWM cable connector pins (male and female) and housings! Those cables from IFI got mighty expensive when they were all added up. We wanted to make our own PWM cables to length, but couldn't really source decent connectors that would stay together properly.

A few encoders included in the kit would be WICKED. 4-5 optical 128 pulse per revolution ones would work great. A few multi-turn pots wouldn't hurt either for those who prefer to work with those.

I'm sure there are a few other things on my wish list, but that's what comes to mind off the top of my head.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Also another thing that we had trouble with was lack of the (not sure exact name) crimp on circular connectors that connected 6 gauge wire to the ground stud. One kid on our team thought it would be fun to wire all the components onto a piece of lexan, not realizing that mounting things onto out WOOD base would be much simpler. But since he had already crimped on these connectors, we were stuck with some of his not so hot wiring layouts.