Advantages of the Jaguars?

[Cory]

Originally Posted by EricVicenti

We've released the magic white smoke on a number of Victors in the past few years, and to our knowledge, we hadn't done anything wrong, (aside from not being careful enough with metal shavings falling in). I am, however, more inclined to believe you. What could we have done wrong to burn them out? What happened to you guys?

Hopefully with this knowledge and some care, we won't burn out any more victors, or jaguars if they are prone to the same weak points.

If you're constantly burning up any electronics, I'd reassess your work practices.

Are you drilling over the robot? If so, are you covering your electronics with a towel or something else to prevent chips from falling in them?

Have you dropped screws, nuts, etc into the robot?

Have you used a compressed air line near the robot and potentially blown metal chips into it?

Victors don't just smoke themselves of their own accord, so there must be something that's user specific that is causing them to die.

As to what we've done, chips in the robot have caused problems before. A chip shorted out our RC and fried it in Hawaii last year. The program connector and power connectors have been sheared off the RC due to mishandling.

If you're careful with all of the electronic items we get in the kit, they should last you a long time, regardless of who made them.

[Eugene Fang]

Originally Posted by Cory

If you're careful with all of the electronic items we get in the kit, they should last you a long time, regardless of who made them.

I completely agree. In 2006, our RC stopped working during competition, and we eventually figured out it was because a metal chip had landed in the pins. Ever since then, we've been careful to cover the electronics whenever we worked on the robot, especially when drilling holes. We haven't had any problems since.

[EricVicenti]

Originally Posted by Cory

If you're constantly burning up any electronics, I'd reassess your work practices.

Are you drilling over the robot? If so, are you covering your electronics with a towel or something else to prevent chips from falling in them?

Have you dropped screws, nuts, etc into the robot?

Have you used a compressed air line near the robot and potentially blown metal chips into it?

Victors don't just smoke themselves of their own accord, so there must be something that's user specific that is causing them to die.

As to what we've done, chips in the robot have caused problems before. A chip shorted out our RC and fried it in Hawaii last year. The program connector and power connectors have been sheared off the RC due to mishandling.

If you're careful with all of the electronic items we get in the kit, they should last you a long time, regardless of who made them.

Last year we burnt out 2 or 3 victors between build season and four competitions. The compressed air and the holes were probably our weak points. We usually cover the electronics and hold a vacuum to the drill, but at a few points we may have gotten lazy. Sometimes the mentality spreads that all chips can simply be cleaned up later before we turn the robot on, but that clearly must be avoided.