Our team needs longer pwm cables so we were wondering if it is legal solder some custom pwm cables to make them longer? We were planning on using somehting along the lines of telephone wire.
As far as I know it is. Several PWM wires on our eletronics board are soldered to make longer.
The parts flowchart (Man8 page 19) says that it’s legal.
So yes, go ahead.
For those that don’t want to do that you can just use 2 cables plugged into each other and tape them so they don’t come apart.
But yes, you can cut and solder them.
It is also possible to buy bulk servo cable and fittings from Digikey or other on-line electronics shops to manufacture your own custom one-piece cables.
Jason
This is what we do on Team 95. In fact, we usually only use the kit pwm cables for prototyping and pit repairs, everything else is custom pwm cables cut to length to make the wiring neater.
For our long runs this year, we used Cat 5e cable and some RJ45 to 0.1" pin connector breakout boards from SparkFun. I’m rather happy with how that worked out.
Any of these work but…
I frown on solid wire used on moving devices. The vibration can cause them to fail and you know what Murphy says about this…It will happen during the last match of the finals. Extensions are the easiest followed by soldering and insulating followed by buying the right stuff and making them yourself. If you are planning on coming back next year, get the pins and wire and a nice crimper from Digikey. It is the best long term solution.