I have been working for quite a bit on creating and improving our documentation regarding Electrical over the past year, and wanted to share it for others to look at, make suggestions, and learn from, so feel free to do any of the above!
The Electrical manual focuses mostly on standard practices (hence its lengthy name), and while it was written with respect to our teams specific capabilities, I believe that it can be used quite effectively outside our team. The practices include many different types of connectors, CAN, soldering, general stuff, and a few other things actually detailed in the manual.
It can be found, along with other documents, on our Resources page. Thank you for your time and suggestions!
nitpicky and perhaps this was done on purpose to simplify and avoid future confusion:
The VH-109 can supply power to downstream components out of 2 of its ethernet ports. And the VH-109 is compatible with the REV RPM.
Why you would recommend wiring with a 12V POE injector and 12V direct to PDP/PDH is for redundancy &&&:
The REV RPM is a 19V output device. The radio can operate on this well, but downstream devices powered by the VH-109 when configured for passthrough passive POE will likely be damaged (usually expecting 12V passthrough POE).
NOTE: do not use the REV RPM…AND…12V wired direct to the PDH/PDP
AT THE SAME TIME
as both of these voltage sources (19V and 12V) will be placed in parallel when connected to the VH-109 radio. Best case this will cause a fuse/circuit breaker to blow powering either the RPM or at the 12V PDP/PDH port powering the radio. If a circuit breaker; damage to the radio is more likely with repeated make/break operations causing this short-circuit path through the radio.
All of that to reiterate: Perhaps this information was omitted for simplicity and to avoid confusion given the detailed information needed to understand and wire it correctly with the possibility of mistakes. But feel free to use any of this, reword any of it, or don’t include it at all. Its up to you and the detailed intent of this document!
This was indeed left out on purpose, I wanted to include more details in the actual components guide (to be made later), although I think now that it may be useful to include.
I should have made this more clear that methods that were the same as the OM5P-AC radio were in that section, so this has been fixed, thanks!
I am slightly confused about these points, are they things which are wrong with the current stuff, or things which should be added?
Is this part of the nitpick, or just expanding on this:
Do not wire with a RPM and directly, the RPM steps up voltage
Nevertheless, I have added some of the above text. Thank you for all these suggestions!
The third quote starting the confusion: its mealy explaining 1 reason to recommend powering off of 12V - redundancy. I realize its not worded the best after re-reading it and can be interpreted as confusion on my part with some broken English, or a critique - but it is neither of those, I just cant think of a way to word it better at the moment on not alot of sleep last night
Then the second bullet points out a CON of 19V wiring again pointing to the recommended path of 12V sourcing supporting the PRO of 12V wiring.
And finally yes, the last ones are just all bolding and underscoring eachother, dont use BOTH THE RPM &&& 12V wiring at the same time, it will cause a bad time.
I think you are parsing my sleepy English this morning quite well!
I would suggest deleting the combination wire stripper/crimper in LLX since it is easy to get inconsistent crimps with it. You have other wire strippers and a ratcheting crimper in LLXI that gives much more consistent results.
However I want people to know that it is an option. I have added a note that it is inconsistent and to not use. I didn’t know that they were inconsistent since I always used the ones from I.II.III, so thanks for that testimonial. I haven’t been able to actually get a good crimp from the ratchet one, or the manual one anyways, which is why I used the ones from I.II.III.
Although manual non-ratcheting crimpers exist, and you can get working results from I.II.III and others similar - ratcheting crimpers are an order of magnitude better in reliability and repeatability.
The ratcheting crimpers will not let you open/release* them without completing the crimp (moving the mechanism far enough that the dies close enough to create a crimp within manufacturers specification for a complete crimp).
If this document is meant to standardize, improve reliability, or repeatability I would aim to recommend SPECIFIC tools that get used for given connectors/terminals instead of listing ALL POSSIBLE tools you have that could be used. Maybe make a recommended tools section and a “Basic/Getting Started/works sometimes if you do it right” section.
Although you have created functional joints with I.II.III, the variability those tools result in is so wide, and the failure rate of those (usually used for butt splices) so high, I don’t keep those around at home and am trying to drive them out of our robotics team substituted with to-spec crimpers and dies instead of all-purpose or general ones (admittedly I’m an electrical engineer and a snob for my projects/wiring).
*There is a manual release if something goes wrong - but it is not the easiest to actuate and requires intentional release reinforcing the user complete the crimp instead of just moving it till it gets hard then manually releasing before the crimp is complete)
The ratcheting crimpers are available for $30, or less from many sources online and at the big box home improvement stores so there is no reason not to get the ratcheting types.
I would also suggest adding notes to purchase the crimp lugs and other connectors from reputable sources such as AndyMark, Home Depot, Lowes, Digikey, Mouser, electrical suppliers, etc. and avoid purchasing them from Amazon. It is possible to get lucky. A previous team got some from Amazon that just would not stay on the wires. I took some home and compared them to the ones I purchased for personal projects and I knew worked properly. When I cut them apart, I found the metal was thinner and was much softer than the ones that worked properly so they has no hope of working properly.
This is a good point, the main reason I wasn’t doing so before was so that someone wouldn’t just pick up a random tool, and have no idea what it does, which is why I included some that we never use in the first place. I think this can be rectified by adding a clarification to some of these tools (like the manual ring) to “not use” or “recommended tool” to the materials and tools lists. I’ll practice a bit with the ratcheting one to see if I can actually get it to work properly tomorrow. I’ll also start trying to find the part numbers for the tools themselves, which should help for other teams.
Also a good point, I’ll add a specific point about this (probably at the Section 2.0 starter section). I think that most of this is rectified by including the part number links at the bottom of each section, but admittedly some don’t have a lot. Once again, thanks for all the suggestions, they have been very helpful!
I have not yet made the changes from the last post to the Electrical Manual, as I have been working on this document. I spun this document off due to it being so long, and I want feedback on it as well, same sort of things as for the Electrical Manual.
The main purpose of the RC Manual was to document some things we discovered while converting our robots to RC control. It also documents several processes relating to the basic conversion of robots, and as such is less lengthy and strict than the Electrical Manual.
Once again, thank you for your time and suggestions!
Both these have been done, with a note added in the appropriate crimpers appendices saying:
(Recommended ____)
With the blank being the connector type.
Where relevant, a note was also added in the materials for the crimping procedure of the recommended tool. This applied only to Molex and the Ring/Spade/Tab connectors. Other crimpers have been left in the Molex section due to the excessive cost of the recommended crimper. The alternate crimpers were removed from the materials list of the Ring/Spade/Tab, with a note that alternates are in the appendices if desired.
A note was added to the beginning of Section 2.0 to purchase from reputable suppliers, with some listed.
Once again, thanks for all the suggestions, I will always be open to more about both the Electrical and RC manuals!
I just want to thank everyone for the suggestions and praise they have given so far with the various manuals, it has been well appreciated!
I wanted to say that the public support for the suggestions and the like will end April 30 as the championship finishes, and I have IB tests to do. After that, I am graduated and no longer affiliated. I don’t know of any current plans to continue public feedback and updates on our Electrical subgroup, but they are welcome to do so.
