Ok Ladies and Gentlemen,
There were complaints and comments about the hardware used for electrical this year. I would like to get some suggestions on NEW electrical parts that might be worthwhile suggesting for use next year. If there is a wiring block, connector, fuse panel, terminal or battery insulator, etc., you would like to see provided in the kit or required for use on next year’s robot, please list it here with links to the manufacturer and/or supplier. I personally liked the distro block and want to see it back but there may be a better device out there. If you know of something, let us know. We don’t have that much time before plans need to be finalized so let us know soon.
120 amp battery connectors would be nice, since we’re up to a 120 amp breaker now.
Cory
The anderson powerpole connectors for 10 gauge and smaller wire would be really nice. I saw them on a few bots and they don’t have male or female ends. All fit together nicely. http://www.andersonpower.com/products/pp/pp.html FIRST already deals with them so maybe it would be possible. 
I really liked the power ditribution block and ground stud. The new Maxi fuse block was good too. The included electrical conectors were good quality but there wasn’t enough quantity and variety. I would like to see battery connectors switch over to the single PowerPole 75 Amp units like these
I don’t like the 6 gauge wire, it needs more (finer) strands so it is more flexible. The 10 gauge wire could be higher quality as well. I don’t particulary like the ground area on the regular fuse panel but it has been working fine so there’s no reason it shouldn’t continue to do so. I really liked the change in the battery’s terminals to plain blocks instead of U shaped terminals. As stated before, the Anderson PowerPoles (I think they are the 45 Amp ones) for 10 gauge wire would be beautiful. Plugs, wire, and pins should be provided for making your own PWM style cables to plug into the headers on the RC. The red tether (or was it programming) serial cable should not be female to female. I thought I read a good reson for it once but I can’t remember and I don’t like that thing anyway (although the red is cool).
I think at least two shaft encoders/ rotation sensors and once gyro/tilt sensor/accelerometer should be provided.
That’s about all I can think of right now.
This is impossible, but an AC Power supply!! Yes, the same rules will apply for tethering. Plug the orange cord into your end zone and robots away!!
Just Kidding
Maybe a much lighter battery. Fuel Cell?
I like the grounding stud. I wish we were given more O-ring connectors for it. If you miss a crimp on the connector you either have to buy some more at the ridiculous price or drill out a smaller connector (not a good idea).
EDIT: Sorry, didn’t realize this was a discussion on new parts.
I liked the new current sensor. I didn’t like how FIRST handled the PCB issue. FIRST should have provided a way to obtain the PCB a little easier. Perhaps, by purshasing a lot of them and selling them through their new online store.
If the current sensor comes back or we get another “sensor project”, it would be nice for FIRST to give instructions on how to obtain all non-standard (I.E. custom PCB) parts.
EDIT: Sorry, didn’t realize this was a discussion on new parts.
I’d like to see a distance sensor included. Infra-red or sonar. Something with the capability of long range distance sensing, approximately 15 ft.
SensComp 6500 Ranging Module, range 6" to 35’. Used along with an appropriate transducer.
also, there is a thread about the type of wire that the thunder chickens used. This wire seems like it would be a nice upgrade from the standard wire that comes in the kit.
It was the tether that was red, and it was done that way so you couldnt accidently plug it into the program port, and damage the RC and/or O/I. It was a little short when we were using it, but we just plugged a 25ft serial cable on one end and taped the connectors together.
2004 was the first year I had the opportunity to wire up a robot. I was very pleased at how complete the kit was.
The only thing I really wished came in the kit was a few lengths of heatshrink tubing (red and black, 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" diameter) and some split flex tubing to keep everything nice and neat.
What would be SUPER nice is a big bag of 3-pin PWM cable connector pins (male and female) and housings! Those cables from IFI got mighty expensive when they were all added up. We wanted to make our own PWM cables to length, but couldn’t really source decent connectors that would stay together properly.
A few encoders included in the kit would be WICKED. 4-5 optical 128 pulse per revolution ones would work great. A few multi-turn pots wouldn’t hurt either for those who prefer to work with those.
I’m sure there are a few other things on my wish list, but that’s what comes to mind off the top of my head.
Also another thing that we had trouble with was lack of the (not sure exact name) crimp on circular connectors that connected 6 gauge wire to the ground stud. One kid on our team thought it would be fun to wire all the components onto a piece of lexan, not realizing that mounting things onto out WOOD base would be much simpler. But since he had already crimped on these connectors, we were stuck with some of his not so hot wiring layouts.
I definately think that we need more of the connectors and also more 10 gauge wire in the kit. We had plenty 6 gauge etc but did not have nearly enough 10 gauge in black or red. I also wouldnt mind seeing a gyro included in the kit as we had the IFI gyros in the past. Its much easier to get assistance if everyone is using the same one. Also we didnt have enough 20 amp auto-reset fuses to hook everything up.
-Aaron
I’d like to see an accelerometer be included with the kit. We ordered ours, but it never worked. That made our programmer’s life hell trying to get a working autonomous.
I must agree with aaronbr28040’s post. They need to give a lot more connectors. We ran out of them about 3 times during build season. Mostly because we weren’t too careful with all of them. But it never hurts to put a few more packs of connectors with the kit so we don’t have to run out every couple of days to get a kind of connectors.