Swarf - The Sparkly Killer

[Mr. Lim]

At the end of the season, our team had a WGA that we thought was intermittent. It had dropped out a few times halfway through the GTR, and for the remainder of the season, we used loaners at the events.

A few weeks ago, we opened it up, and the PCB was absolutely covered in filth.

We generally take great care to cover up all our electronics whenever we remove material on the robot - regardless of whether it is near the electronics board or not. We always blow everything out with compressed air afterwards as well.

However, I thought this year the dirt/swarf problem seemed a lot worse. It seemed like the static buildup from running on these wheels/regolith/carpet turned our electronics into dust and dirt magnets.

Has anyone else bothered to crack open their WGAs? Was yours incredibly dirty, despite thinking your electronics housekeeping was pretty good?

After vacuuming, brushing, and blowing it clean, the WGA works great again!