Hi all,
We just wanted to share with you some issues that we found with the battery cables in our kit. We found that the end-connectors of some cables from Andymark were not well crimped and some connectors actually failed during our tests of the electrical system. You should check if the end-connectors are solidly attached to the cable (It would suck to have a robot stop during a match because the cable failed)
We’ve had issues in the past with AndyMark’s crimping. We’ve found that crimp and torch soldering your own connectors improves reliability.
Yes. In our team, one of the mentors had the tools to crimp the broken cables again. We also did this to the remaining cables to ensure that the connectors remained well attached.
In our kit this year the battery cable polarity was actually backwards. They powered up everything and blew a bunch of breakers and damaged some speed controllers. Hopefully nothing else fails later as a result.
lphung, I have a quick question, were these from FIRST Choice, KoP, or purchased directly from AndyMark?
As the Manufacturing Manager here at AndyMark, any time I see a thread like this I am concerned, because I want to make sure that your products are of the highest quality. Our crimping tool here at AndyMark is a 6 ton pneumatic crimp tool. Battery cables provided in FIRST Choice and other places in the KoP are actually provided by other sponsors, not by AndyMark. Our battery cables also have blue AndyMark heat shrink on the ring terminal ends.
We would definitely be interested in seeing pictures of this, and if they were indeed AndyMark battery cables, we would be more than willing to send you replacements, just contact our customer service department at sales [at] andymark.com
Would it be safe to assume that AndyMark makes battery cable assemblies with red SB-50 connectors only?
Correct. All AndyMark connectors use the Red SB-50.