2009 Peachtree Regional

[Ed Sparks]

Originally Posted by Zflash

Take your pick from two scenarios.

1. The 120A circuit breaker was broken and not providing power to the robot.

2. There was an issue with the field that the FTA and others could not figure out and wanted to keep matches moving. (I am not accusing anyone of anything shady, however we were not given any answers other then it was our robot. Which it may have been)

IMHO, It was option #1. I know because I was the guy with my face in your robot when this was happening. There were no LED's illuminated on the power distribution block shortly after the match started. I confirmed there was no power on the Bridge or the cRIO and the RSL was off. The exact same thing happened to 590. I saw this 3 times on Saturday. I brought this up in the inspector's post event confrence call and it has happened before at other events and other years. The 120A breaker is not bullet proof apparently.

[santosh]

Originally Posted by Ed Sparks

IMHO, It was option #1. I know because I was the guy with my face in your robot when this was happening. There were no LED's illuminated on the power distribution block shortly after the match started. I confirmed there was no power on the Bridge or the cRIO and the RSL was off. The exact same thing happened to 590. I saw this 3 times on Saturday. I brought this up in the inspector's post event confrence call and it has happened before at other events and other years. The 120A breaker is not bullet proof apparently.

And yes, he is completely correct. It wouldnt stay closed. We took it off and got a new one that we are putting in right when we get to Palmetto.

They said if the robot was off they would have stopped the match but what had happened we it gave a voltage reading as the match started but like seconds later the breaker failed and the robot turned off. Therefore they couldnt do anything about it and had to let the match run.

It was completely fair. Unfortunate, but completely fair. Plus we won that one.

I am not sure what to tell teams who wantt o check this problem but I believe that Flash said that they had this issue as well. Just beware about this problem. Maybe test your switch before matches to ensure that it doesn't pop out. Or Tape it like us haha

[Tom Bishop]

It seems pretty clear that the WiredCats problem was with the main breaker, and Flash's too. But to have so many go out at once seems unlikely; not impossible, but unlikely. We have had main breakers go out before, but on older robots that have retired from competition. Never had one go out during a competition that I can remember. But I plan on bringing a spare to Championships

I can't remember an elims round where so many robots didn't work at some point in a round. Our alliance had problems, #1 had problems, seems like others did as well. I wonder if there's an issue with this batch of main breakers? Or maybe just an issue with teams getting excited and forgetting the basics

[RMS11]

Originally Posted by Tom Bishop

It seems pretty clear that the WiredCats problem was with the main breaker, and Flash's too. But to have so many go out at once seems unlikely; not impossible, but unlikely. We have had main breakers go out before, but on older robots that have retired from competition. Never had one go out during a competition that I can remember. But I plan on bringing a spare to Championships

I can't remember an elims round where so many robots didn't work at some point in a round. Our alliance had problems, #1 had problems, seems like others did as well. I wonder if there's an issue with this batch of main breakers? Or maybe just an issue with teams getting excited and forgetting the basics

Our breaker might have been from last years bot for some reason... I am about 90% sure it was.

[ebarker]

[quote=Tom Bishop;837709]I wonder if there's an issue with this batch of main breakers?/QUOTE]

Tom,

In our lab there was an incident where we had a problem with the breaker and I quickly looked at it and thought it was bad. If I remember right it didn't latch on correctly.

We were planning on replacing it and that task got forgotten.

I'm a little nervous about this years batch.

I would definitely take a spare.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Let's move the breaker discussion over to electrical. See you there.

[joshsmithers]

I believe what I'm about to say should be relevant to Peachtree, but this may have occurred elsewhere as well.

In SF 1-2, our robot would drive. More specifically, our pick-up and dumping mechanisms functioned the entire match, but our drive motors never did. There is no way to know whether or not the Jaguars driving the two cims were getting a signal, but I doubt it. The jags were connected properly before and immediately after the match, when I checked. Back at the pit (after we lost), we immediately tethered and drove the robot. It operated flawlessly. Our team has mixed feelings about why this happened, but I believe it was a field issue. However, it was only the drive motors (which plug into to pwms 1 and 2, so maybe the signal for those weren't getting there?!?!).

Did any other teams have issues with their robot mysteriously work only partially? This has really been bugging me...

[PlatyPi Gunner]

we did actually in qf-2 i think as well as the 2nd match before eliminations. It only occurred when we were on the blue side, blue 3 to be more specific. Also, our shooters were the only thing that worked as well, me managed to score like 3 balls on a robot that got too close. They blamed our drivers station, and gave us a new one

[joshsmithers]

After discussing this a little more with the team, one mentor recalled 1319 not working in the finals, match 1; can anyone confirm or disprove this? I know for sure that 590 wasn't working in finals, match two.

Originally Posted by Zflash

EDIT: Also are alliance partner 590s robot stopped working in the last final match, we assumed it too was a bad 120A cb, however I am not sure if any of 590s members confirmed it.

Everytime this happened, it was on the blue side of the field. Coincidence?

DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to blame the field or complain about the results of the matches, I am just trying to figure out what exactly went wrong.

PS- 2655, I heard your team is coming up to Hillsborough for THOR in June. Is this true? (I hope so.)

[Jimmy K]

Originally Posted by joshsmithers

After discussing this a little more with the team, one mentor recalled 1319 not working in the finals, match 1; can anyone confirm or disprove this?

Yes, I also saw Flash's robot not work. This has already been discussed. See posts #116, $119, and #121 in this thread, and the main circuit breaker thread in the Electrical Forum.

[cziggy343]

Originally Posted by joshsmithers

Everytime this happened, it was on the blue side of the field. Coincidence?

nope, b/c in the semi-finals when they didn't work, they were red

[joshsmithers]

Originally Posted by cziggy343

nope, b/c in the semi-finals when they didn't work, they were red

Yay, even worse.

[PlatyPi Gunner]

We were down a robot too in the first final, and part of our conveyor had snapped off by the second. kinda off topic, but it confused me to why 1746 didn't call a timeout when their bot was on the fritz

Originally Posted by joshsmithers

PS- 2655, I heard your team is coming up to Hillsborough for THOR in June. Is this true? (I hope so.)

as for that, I personally have no idea what it is, but I'll look into it and get back to you

[Zflash]

Originally Posted by PlatyPi Gunner

We were down a robot too in the first final, and part of our conveyor had snapped off by the second. kinda off topic, but it confused me to why 1746 didn't call a timeout when their bot was on the fritz



as for that, I personally have no idea what it is, but I'll look into it and get back to you

Since you brought it up I was confused as to why they did not shut your robot off when your conveyor belt was dragging on the floor and made you go outside the size constraints.

Anybody?

[PlatyPi Gunner]

Originally Posted by joshsmithers

PS- 2655, I heard your team is coming up to Hillsborough for THOR in June. Is this true? (I hope so.)

I don't see why not! haha, It's more up to funding, but it sounds like fun.

and as for our robot not being turned off, we were essentially stationary for the latter half of the match, and i'm pretty sure the belt didn't leave the inside of the robot until i pulled it off at the end, and if it did we were in the center of a jumble of robots and it would've been hard to notice.