We were just able to order two Rev PDHs, along with their pneumatic control module and their power module.
Is it legal to use the CTRE pneumatic module and VRM with the Rev PDH?
Yes, that is perfectly fine. All those parts work interchangeably.
Yes. You can power both of them individually using the 3 low-current channels on the PDH.
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Thanks. I’m thinking with the larger size of the PDH, the CTRE PCM might be a way to save space
I would strongly suggest using the CTRE PCM because it is more reliable. The REV pneumatics hub will often blow the 20a fuse, while yes that can be resolved by putting it on a 20a breaker, I really wouldn’t want to use defective electronics that pull too much current in the first place. I have never seen the CTRE PCM blow a fuse and much less so repeatedly.
REV recommend putting the PH on a 20A breaker, although that advice doesn’t seem to have reached their website yet.
https://docs.revrobotics.com/rev-11-1852/pneumatic-hub-specifications?q=breaker
It is recommended to use a 20A fuse or circuit breaker with the Pneumatic Hub if using a compressor with higher peak current draw, such as the CP26 or the Thomas 405ADC38.
Still however this is an unrelability unique to the PH. We were popping the 20a fuses with the FIRST choice compressor and the PH but not with a PCM.
No - it really isn’t unique to REV. Back when we used 20 amp fuses and spikes, the Inrush current would routinely pop them. Inrush or startup greatly exceeds operating current for a short time. FRC allowed 20 amp breakers in the spikes when we used them for this purpose.
It looks like REV designed a bit on the edge, and the different inrush currents of different compressors may cause an issue.
So, yeah, just use a breaker instead of a fuse. Not a big deal.
I’ll very much second this. The REV pneumatics hub has had some serious reliability issues. One of our alliance partners last season had a REV PH literally melt down during playoffs. Fortunately, they were able to make it through the last matches on stored pressure, but it was a very close thing. Our own REV PH never got past the testing stage, since it gave us a lot of trouble and we switched it out early for an old CTRE PCM. We’ll be sticking with the CTRE PCM for now.
Absolutely. In 2022 we used the Rev PDH with the CTRE VRM (no pneumatics), but I also inspected teams who had the Rev PDH with the CTRE PCM.
We did this with the breaker but saw 2 PHs fail in practice where the compressor circuit had fried and no longer turned on (maybe over running the compressor… Not sure but the board on one was noticeably burnt up at the compressor power connector)
We have never seen the same issue on the CTRE pneumatics hub and made that switch back after Houston and have not had an issue. Hopefully this is something Rev can work on improving. Good news is the feature sets are comparable.