How fast have you broken stuff?

[hihihiflcl81pig]

Ok, so our team wanted to build a prototype to test all of the new systems, and to have it for driving practice. Two days after the game was announced we had that bot done. We drove it around, and everything was perfect. The next day we were driving the bot again, and both of the Jaguars on the bot burnt out. Luckily, they will replace them, as long as we sent them the burnt ones back for analysis.

So how about your team? The worst thing that I can imagine is some team burning out their C-Rio. (Anyone?)

[T3H_K3YM45T3R]

my team had a jag short and it killed the signal for about 10 seconds and then it went back to normal

[NorviewsVeteran]

Last year we popped our trackball by the second week

[SWIM]

I hope they're wrong, but according to my electrical team, they bricked a pair of Jaguars teaching rookies how to wire the control system, and not checking to make sure the wires were going to where they should be before turning the crio on.

This happened either immediately after the kickoff, or perhaps even before that.

[mynameisbob]

Weve broken the plastic camera mount, but thankfully that isnt vitally important and its only a minor problem.

[viperred396]

Originally Posted by mynameisbob

Weve broken the plastic camera mount.

Wow we broke ours also

[Sleiter]

Yeah, We had our practice bot up and running the first week, but we blew 2 of the jags. They both still turned on, but wouldn't run the motors! IT'S FRUSTRATING!!! I was expecting trouble, but already?

[Uberbots]

We fried our OI two years ago by having it sink waaay too much current.
We had an uncountable amount of broken fiberglass dowels last year

luckily i dont think we have ever broken an important part of the control system (less the oi)

[The Megan 2207]

We fried a PWM cable in '07. It could have been a lot worse (I believe it was connected to the OI), but fortunately it was just the cable that released blue smoke.

Last year we broke so many 1/4" drill bits that our mentors ordered a 12-pack of 1/4" drill bits to replace them. We broke a couple of those too.

[spc295]

we lost a joystick, not really sure what happened there

[Cow Bell Solo]

Originally Posted by The Megan 2207

We fried a PWM cable in '07. It could have been a lot worse (I believe it was connected to the OI), but fortunately it was just the cable that released blue smoke.

It was connected to the RC and I was lucky that it was just the cable that released the smoke!!

[daltore]

One of our more head-in-the-clouds members decided the positive-to-negative rule of series connections worked for putting power cables on batteries too, so we ended up with a backward battery plug that no one noticed before plugging it into the wireless router so the OI would be portable. I'm so glad we had the foresight to just plug it into the router instead of the DS. The router blew, so we opened it up and fortunately it was just a 0-ohm resister that we could solder over and fix the problem. That was 4 days after kick-off.

Last year's robot, we had 6 Victors. By the end of the season, we'd bought 6 replacements, but only for 4 of them. We had (6) 4" wheels going 1200 RPM with wedge-top tread. When consulting the table that says how likely you are to blow a motor controller, we realized we were off the chart. We also ran through a set of IFI traction wheels, 3 sets of treads, 4 sprockets, a forklift fork, and have 4 SLA batteries that are on their last chemical reactions from that one build season.

After last year, we've decided to use the ToughBoxes, #35 chain, bulk belting, robones lexan, the new Banebots gearboxes, we're prototyping everything, and putting structural reinforcement on every single part of the robot that has any chance of being exposed to stress so we either won't break anything, or it'll be cheap to fix.

[ZInventor]

Originally Posted by Sleiter

Yeah, We had our practice bot up and running the first week, but we blew 2 of the jags. They both still turned on, but wouldn't run the motors! IT'S FRUSTRATING!!! I was expecting trouble, but already?

We had a similar problem, but it was due to a problem with the ToughBoxes -- the slot pin that goes on the CIM's axle had fallen out, and therefore, the cim was running, but, it wasn't turning the gear.

luckily, we were able to find the problem quickly, and add a couple of push on washer (you know, the ones with little teeth on the inside, so that once there on, they don't come off)... now, they work fine.

-Z

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by NorviewsVeteran

Last year we popped our trackball by the second week

It took you 2 weeks?!?

Ours came equipped with a hole (and it finished tearing itself apart within 2 hours of kickoff )