[FRC Blog] 2025 Legal Devices

Yeah, I chose to make separate boards with different connectors on them, mainly to keep the part physically small

These also exist and have been reliable in most off-highway machines with CAN buses and high vibration:

Im searching for a better vendor as these should be a couple of bucks at most and that is clearly not what they are being sold al carte.

Interface is a standard 2-pin SAE bullet connector

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I’ve used this version in years past. We’re a REV house, so there’s value to us in being able to attach a little 3x socket rather than use ferrules/solder.

https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/I2FNzsJC

For our CAN Terminator, we stick a resister in one end of these idc connectors. Cheap and easy.

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Working on a new board that will have an additional feature I haven’t personally seen, hopefully y’all will like it.
Behind my design philosophy for the other two, I’m trying to stick to standard FRC solderless connections (lever terminals and Molex) and make it so it can be used for termination and drop-in debugging. I’m also making sure everything is secure but also user-serviceable, so I’m not using any surface-mounted components. I’ll be releasing design files for all of these once I polish them all up, but I also might look into selling them for added accessibility.

No SMD devices? Interesting

Well, at least for the resistor. In case something happens to it I’d like for teams to be able to easily replace it. SMD soldering is much more difficult than through hole soldering. For the connectors, I also prefer through hole not only for the above reason but also it’s possible they can hold more force without ripping out of the board, but this is completely based on vibes and not backed by any science

Through hole components are significantly more robust than surface mount. the main thing going for surface mount is most of the objects are tiny! When you have a wire leading away, that extra robustness is a bit plus!

Yeah, that’s what my intuition was telling me, but I didn’t bother to look into it much further