Automatic Power

[Swampcoder2]

Over the past week, we've been test driving our chassis. The electronics module is pre-wired and self-contained. The battery is mounted to the chassis. We added the module to the chassis, connected the motor wires through a terminal strip and connected the battery via the supplied QD connectors. The 120A circuit breaker, fuse panel and electronics are wired as outlined in the wiring diagram.

The cool thing is, we drove around fine, set the chassis up on a table to check a few things and while we're talking and pointing out something, I feel air blowing on my arm... Confused, I look over to see the Victor fans are running, their LED's are on... I continue looking around the module and notice the spikes are on, the RC is running, the fuse panel LED is on, the whole electrical system is running - I check the 120A breaker and it's OFF!!!?? I quickly try to trip the breaker but nothing happens, I cycled the breaker and it stayed on... finally, I disconnected the battery and the power turned off.

Our robot is possessed!! I plugged the battery back up a little later and the breaker functioned as normal. Later that day or the next day, the same thing happened. We've been running without incident the past few days.

Has anyone experienced this? I think there is an evil gremlin in our breaker.

[jdhawg]

Do you have the Blue "Backup Battery" connected? Every time I throw the breaker I get scared something's wrong for a few seconds because everything is still running, and then I remember the Backup is connected. Just hit the 'reset' button on your Robot Controller to kill the power.

[Warren Boudreau]

Disconnect the 7.2V battery.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Swampcoder2

I think there is an evil gremlin in our breaker.

It does sound like your main breaker is broken (by failing to break reliably).

The only other possibility I can think of is that you have some dangly wires or unfortunately placed bolts somewhere, and your chassis is intermittently completing the circuit around the breaker.

(Pay no attention to the comments about the backup battery. It won't power the Victor fans or the breaker panel LED, and the RC firmware shuts off after five seconds without main power anyway.)

[russell]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

It does sound like your main breaker is broken (by failing to break reliably).

The only other possibility I can think of is that you have some dangly wires or unfortunately placed bolts somewhere, and your chassis is intermittently completing the circuit around the breaker.

(Pay no attention to the comments about the backup battery. It won't power the Victor fans or the breaker panel LED, and the RC firmware shuts off after five seconds without main power anyway.)

Alan is right. The backup battery couldnt power the fans and such even if it was running the Robot Controller, and the new firmware this year changed things so your Robot Controller automatically shuts down after about five seconds. Additionally we had a similar problem after our regional was over last year, where we would press the button and the little dealie would pop out, but it wouldnt pop out quite far enough. We could still turn it off by reaching down and pulling it out, but for competition you should get a new one.

[Swampcoder2]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

It does sound like your main breaker is broken (by failing to break reliably).

The only other possibility I can think of is that you have some dangly wires or unfortunately placed bolts somewhere, and your chassis is intermittently completing the circuit around the breaker.

(Pay no attention to the comments about the backup battery. It won't power the Victor fans or the breaker panel LED, and the RC firmware shuts off after five seconds without main power anyway.)

We don't even have the backup battery connected (I haven't found a spot for it yet)...

I'll double-check for those darn dangly wires, but I doubt I'll find any.

Is it possible this would occur if the breaker was reversed?

[Mike Hendricks]

Originally Posted by Swampcoder2

Is it possible this would occur if the breaker was reversed?

I wouldnt think so .. but I suppose its possible. Check to make sure the "Bat" and "Aux" terminals are connected accordingly. If the problem persists .. try swaping the breaker with the one on your 04 bot. If that fixes the problem .. you had a faulty breaker.