Does anyone know the rules on the legality of how to attach a Electrical component to your robot, such as a victor to be attached with Velcro or glue or tapes , anything else besides its mounting screws
-Osc-
There are no rules about how anything is mounted, as long as you don’t use something that is disallowed by another rule.
Legally you can mount it however you want as long as it is part of the additional hardware list or not restricted.
You can’t use tape because you can only use electrical tape as an insulator.
I have seen Velcro used. It is very simple and easy to replace a victor then.
I think the most common is to use bolts through the mounting holes. 6-32 screws fit very nicely in the holes for the victors. We normally just tap what we are screwing into (almost always 1/4 inch lexan) Works very nicely and no need to deal with nuts when you are in a rush to replace a victor.
No such thing since 2003.
have any of u ever seen parts mounted with a Hot Glue Gun? Any fore seen complicaions with that?
Just one – electrical parts can get hot.
Hot glue is great on robots for many applications, such as a replacement for heat shrink tubings on certain electrical parts. However, for mounting smooth plastic to smooth plastic, there is a good chance that the part will pop off a few weeks down the road (if not a few hours).
it would be on aluminum or steel
The only problem I foresee with hot-melt glue, besides them falling off, is that if you do get them to stick (Or use 2-part epoxy or some other uber-strong glue)…If they ever fail then it would be really hard to replace.
Velcro looks like your best bet for removability, but my team just uses 2 screws diagonally across from each other on the 884’s.
Hope this helped!
Michael, Team 341
Also forgot to write this:
DO NOT USE LOCTITE ON SCREWS USED FOR VICTORS OR SPIKES. It will melt the plastic.
<offtopic>Quick story: We had a guy that decided after a meeting he would go around and loctite every screw on the whole robot. It was a pain to replace something and the loctite ate the plastic on 4-5 victors 2-3 spikes. Was a very costly mistake. Just don’t do it</offtopic>
The guys and I have been kicking around a few ideas to help our electronics go on a diet (20 lb plus electronics panel/s last year) and I’ve got a few thoughts (translation: probably illiegal)
Idea One: mount all electronics on composite board carbon fiber or fiber glass (yes I know CF conducts electricity), tap the composite and use nylon hardware This is very expensive, but one of our sponsors does composite work and we can have the scraps 
Idea Two: mount all electronics on a massive printed circuit board. Design the entire thing in CAD. Route traces to he componants and then solder wires to the board to connect to the component. Also, build in any custom curcuitry and current sensors IN TO the electronics panel. In addition, get solder in fuse holders and eliminate the fuse block. Even better, get board to board connectors, make the entire thing modular and stack the boards. Simple replacement of any component. BUT, it might be considered using the chassis to conduct electricity, wich is agienst the rules
Just thoughts…
-Andy
The CF sounds like an interesting idea to me, but I’m not so sure about Idea two. Most of the weight from the electronics results from the IFI compononets (Issac 32, Victors, Relays), solenoids, battery, and distribution blocks, etc. Seeing as it’s illegal to open anything from IFI, I don’t really see the benefit to running it all into printed circuit boards. I DO like the idea of having a single printed circuit board for all your sensors to attach to, and then a modular connector to the IFI box.
We tried something similiar this year which never got off the ground, which V2.0 will be on the robot this year. We’re going to define each segment of the robot electrically (The arm has two globes and two relays, the left side drive has a drill and an atwood, a solenoid, and a wheel encoder, etc.) and build modular quick connects. If we need to tear down the robot, you can grab any segment of the robot which is modularaily connected by only a few bolts, disconnect the connector for that segment, take it to somewhere else and work on it. Great for when you have a problem with drive on one side and another problem with the arm, two groups of people can work at once.
So far the best solution to Mounting electrical compononets IMO is still wood if weight is feasible, and plexi if weight’s an issue. A good piece of 1/8" Plexi mounted in a safe location is great for electronics.
We just used some lexan board for our electronics board last year. He had it with a handle on top, the whole thing sat in a corner of our robot. It was a lot of fun to have a pllug and play box, with components on both sides.
Personally, i think that using the velco would be a great idea! I will certainly suggest that to my team. Thanks to all you guys for sharing your ideas.
You can also get some really skinny zip-ties / tie-wraps to mount Victors since they have such small mounting holes. I’ve never tried Velcro, but the nice thing about just tie-wrapping everything down is it leaves no residue on the components. Switching components is pretty easy too, especially compared to trying to bolt something down or hot glue (yikes! :ahh: ) We mount our electronics on Lexan as well.
This also goes for some sensors and limit switches. If in doubt about putting loctite on the fastners for mounting your electronics use teflon tape instead. The teflon will “gum” the threads slightly to prevent them from vibrating lose, won’t attack plastics, and still allows the fastners to be removed if needed. You don’t need a lot, just one or two wraps around the screw or bolt.
Is this legal??? Thaught you can only use zip-ties to hold wires so they stay neat and get caught in things.
YOu can use zip-ties on anything. We have used it for attaching the battery to the holder, to attach the battery connectors to each other, and mounting a cover for our electronics board.
As well as keeping all the wires neat and clean.
The possibilities for zip ties are endless.
Zip ties make me feel happy, and they are amazing for all purposes. IF anything breaks, its a quick fix for in between matches.
Isn’t that illegal? IIRC, the connectors had to be easily accessible and easily disconnectable for safety reasons.