We are wanting to power our ring lights and initially went through the RSL line, but realized that was illegal! Any recommendations on how to power them? Should we go through the PDP with a 12v fuse or could we wire them into a motor controller and have them kick on whenever we engage the motors? (or would that be too much voltage?)
Here are the lights we are using:
So if you can I woulds say to put a relay on the robot if you can so that you can turn the lights on and off. There are rules that you could get in trouble with if you aren’t able to turn them off. So I would say to put it on a relay so that it gets power from the PDP but you can turn them on and off.
If you have spare PCM slots if you’re using pneumatics this year at 12v, you can use them to toggle the ring light on and off.
Our team uses either the VRM as it supplies plenty of power, and we have also found that the pneumatic control modules work as well. If you use the pneumatic control module you could get fancy and turn it off while not in use as if it were a solenoid.
And to your question of if it’s too much power you can run it off the battery without breaking them, however I don’t think running them off the motor controller is legal either.
They shouldn’t draw more than 500 mA/ 0.5A so that should be ok.
I would use a relay, not a speed controller. I’m not sure how the ring light would respond to the speed controller waveform, but there’s no need to find out!
When we’ve used that style of ring light in the past, we’ve powered off the VRM without any issues, just left it running full time. HOWEVER, be aware that if the ring light shorts out, it’ll take the VRM with it. If it’s the same VRM that’s powering your radio, that’s very bad. So we would use a second VRM.
Since then, we’ve found a different style of ring light (from supper bright LEDs, I believe). It’s completely enclosed, so there’s nothing that can short, and it comes with its own in-line voltage regulator, so we can put it on a breaker on the PDP without needing another VRM. very nice, clean package!
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