Neat & Organised Electric Wiring

[Venkatesh]

From much personal experience,

1) Use 12 gauge wiring liberally. The 12 gauge wire is very easy to keep track of, is very flexible, gives you excellent current characteristics, and is rather forgiving of bends/kinks.

2) Use "relay farms". A relay farm is a piece of plexiglass with holes drilled out for up to six relays each. Then six relays are mounted. Use one on each side of the robot. This way, you have spare relays on board (we usually have 1 spare per farm) and can remove all the relays on a side at once.

3) Do the same as above for Speed controllers. However do not keep spare speed controllers on the robot - they are too easily damaged there - but have holes drilled out for them.

4) Use color-coded stickes on each wire pair (+ and -) for a device. NOTE DOWN WHAT COLORS ARE CONNECTED TO WHAT DEVICE! DO NOT LOSE THAT PIECE OF PAPER! (I speak from experience; I have lost wire-color maps twice, they are a pain to reconstruct)

5) Crimp the ends of connectors very very well. Then solder them. You can never have a strong enough joint.

6) Do not ziptie wires together in a bundle unless you have a very good reason to do so. In general, do not overuse zipties. Use velcro loops instead, as they are far more easily removed.

7) Make sure the battery connector is easily accessible. You never know how quickly you will have to change it.

8) Have a diagram of all the wiring on the robot. This diagram should, preferrably, be locatable at critical times during build season and in the pits.

And lastly, good luck at being neat. =)