Magic Smoke and Shrapnel

[Starke]

i can see smoke happening via motors get red hot. there may be shrapnel flying if a robot starts shredding balls. it is possible. this also brings up another good point, if motors stop working correctly, will there be balls flying into the stands?

[sgsdragons]

Originally Posted by Starke340

i can see smoke happening via motors get red hot. there may be shrapnel flying if a robot starts shredding balls. it is possible. this also brings up another good point, if motors stop working correctly, will there be balls flying into the stands?

THAT WOULD BE REALLY COOL TO SEE!!!!!!!!!! LOL

Josh

[KenWittlief]

with all the spinning wheel shooters this year, some with variable angles, Im thinking about the steam generator station in Buffalo, along the Niagara River (near Strawberry Island).

Many years ago one of the 12 foot diameter generator armatures broke loose from its bearings. Since it was mounted vertically it bounced around the inside of the brick building for several seconds, like a giant top gone wild.

Finally it hit something solid and flew out through the brick wall, landing in the niagara river a few hundred yards away. You can still see the patch where the hole in the brick wall was repaired.

So what will happen if one of these spinning shooter wheels breaks loose inside a robot? It would be like a metal tornado inside the machine!

[Peter Matteson]

I would hope teams to the time to properly balance their high speed wheels to minimize the vibrations that would tear apart machines. Also I woupld hope people properly use Loctite, lock nuts, lock washers, and jamb nuts to prevent things from coming apart. Hopefully we don't need to resort to safety wire.

I do believe though that I will detect the oh too familiar scent of FP magic smoke very quickly as someone will stall them or have improper air flow kill one at the regionals I attend.

[dude__hi]

Yesturday we were testing the camera on the robot and we were running our shooting mechanism and the camera lens flew off the board and shot across the room ...It wasn't damaged but what a close call...

[phrontist]

I love the smell of magic smoke in the morning!

I figure balls will be flying in to the crowd all the time, just from driver error... or will the crowd be made to sit further away this year?

[Cody Carey]

Our chain came apart


We were running it at 4000 RMP, and the cnain hit a peice of lexan just right so it unclipped the masterlink...

That was scary

[Bemis]

I missed that, Cody, when did it happen?

[Cody Carey]

When you were at district jazz, I think.

no double posting kids....lol

[Taylor]

In the words of one of the students as he was working with our launcher prototype, "The real surprise came when it bounced off my face." He wasn't referring to the ball, by the way.
Make sure your screws and bolts are tight, boys and girls!
Oh, and we got magic(k? Aleister Crowley lives again?) smoke from our joysticks earlier. That was interesting.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by pyro20911d

no double posting kids....lol

You got it.


Wait.


Um.


Shoot.

[Hieb]

We did get a little magic smoke this year--apparently Victors don't like having the battery wired to the motor side. At least we had some fun pulling it apart and looking at the damage.

[Sachiel7]

Yeah, make sure that youre running your Victor's for any spinwheels in Coast mode. Trying to brake them can cause some bad results if they're still spinning too fast. At least for our team, that helps.
Make sure your shooters are well enclosed too.

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by dude__hi

Yesturday we were testing the camera on the robot and we were running our shooting mechanism and the camera lens flew off the board and shot across the room ..

that would be a neat feature if you could do it with the whole camera: remote viewing!

your robot would have an out-of-body experience