pic: a control box



us students at 447 thought that we needed to be more organized, the judges liked it

What are the red boxes at the very bottom. Battery connectors?

Looks like it’s motor connections. If that’s what they are, it makes it much easier to pull the control panel out for repairs and improvements.

nice job orgnizing the wires

wow, this looks beautiful.

If only I could keep all our wires so organized. Only problem is, the mechanical team never gives us enough room to have nice and organized electronics board, so we alwasy end up trying to squeeze everything into every corner that can fit something.

*cries sweet tears of joy

wow… (are you really using all of those relays and pwm’s?)

That is beautiful…the neatest, most organized control system I have seen on a FIRST robot. Now if I could only get our control team to make ours look that good…or at least half that good. I can only hope.

You think that’s a lot?

810 is using 5 Victor 884’s and 6 Spikes. We were going to be using 7 Spikes, but we ran out of weight/time to add on some cool lighting :).

Of course, the fact that we have all those electronics doesn’t mean the systems they drive all work yet… :-\

Nice wireing job, hope you didn’t get to cut up using the wire mold, that stuff is sharp. BTW you might get challanged on those cooling fans as they are not part of the kit.

My favorite part is the modularity of the whole thing. It looks like with just a couple connections you can remove the box.

On our bot we have:
7 - Victor 884s
5 - Spikes
1 - Servo

I certainly hope not, cuz we have a heat sink on the top of our compressor. With out it, there is no way to keep the compressor cool, and we have the compressor on for the entire match cuz we have soo many pneumatics running all the time.

A heat sink isn’t an electrical device. They follow under the same category a sprocket or chain would.

EDIT: Hooked on phonics worked for me.

Then how can the fans be chanllenged? Sure, they need electricty to run, but their not really electrical divices.

Then how can the fans be chanllenged? Sure, they need electricty to run, but their not really electrical divices.

They may or may not challenge you but just in case bring the giant muffin fans First provided you. They should do the same thing.

FIRST doesn’t agree with you.

ID: 436 Section: 5.3.2 Status: Answered Date Answered: 1/28/2004
Q: May we use additional off-the-shelf fans if their only purpose is to cool the robot?
A: If it comes with its own motor, you may not use it. You may only use additional fans that are powered by motors provided in the Kit.

If the heat sink is a completely passive device (ie. it is a big lump of aluminum that is nailed to your compressor) then it is OK. However, if it is an active device with forced cooling (ie. it is a big lump of aluminum that is nailed to your compressor, and it has an electric fan that forces air over the surface of the lump to speed the removal of excess heat), then you may be in trouble. The fans are electrical devices, and are subject to all the restrictions of such devices under the parts use flowchart.

Under the definitions used by FIRST, a fan is an electronic component (ie. it is designed to conduct electricity). Since it did not come in the kit, you have to ask the question “is the part a motor, solenoid, pump, or other actuator?” the answer is “yes” (the fan does contain a motor). According to the flowchart, the fan may not be used.

-dave

Just make sure you don’t ruin the compressor by nailing this mythical heat sink to it :wink:

Liquid Nails! :smiley:

-dave

All I was pointing out was that ruling “ID: 436 Section: 5.3.2 Status” (I read all the questons and answers one night) If you can use the fans from the kit all is well, that it. They did enclude two big ones and some little ones, we are using two of the little ones to cool our drill motors. So if you get challanged on it just make sure you have the supplied fans at the ready. That is all. BTW there would be no issue of a heat sink on your compressor, cooled by a fan supplied in the kit. Good luck, and it’s still a very professional job with the layout and wiring.

Make sure you have the new version of ifi_aliases.h included in your code. It sounds like you’re among those who are having cooling issues with the compressor because IFI accidentally reversed the relay aliases in one of the earlier code revisions.