ok, so wiring the fans on the victors is a pain. i was wondering if it is legal to simply connect the fan wires to the input terminals of the victor? so the power input at fan would both be attached to the input terminals on the victor itself. what do you guys think? legal? not legal?
Thxe
It’s been allowed in the past, but a quick look at the rules doesn’t seem to reveal the legality this year. If you search the rules and still can’t find an answer, try the Q&A.
<R59>E allows it.
Thanks Eric, I skimmed over that too quickly
What we have done in the past is connect all the fans for the victors together and have used just one breaker.
You might also want to try some ferrule pins. We got some from http://ferrulesdirect.com/
The simplest implementation os to wire the fans to the INPUT side of the Victor. In addition to providing constant cooling, the fan tells you when the Victor is recieving power.
BTW, the fan wires can be cut to length. Please make the installation neat.
Thanks for all the replies, last year we just connected all the victor fans together and put them on their own fuse, but i was just thinking and i got the idea to hook them strait up to the input terminals, seems like it could reduce wire clutter a lot.
Thanks, Thxe
That does sound like it would make the wiring neater, but you can also tell if the victors have power by either the light that is located on them if they are on or blinking, or if your motor isn’t moving when it should
Chris,
We add color tape to the fans to match the motor they are feeding. It is a lot easier to see the color spinning than to look for the side of the Victor the light is on. I believe the hint to wire fans to the input side is suggested in the IFI Victor documentation as well. To quell any rumors out there, IFI requires the fans be installed on the Victor.
I when I read that I liked that and if we use victors this year I am going to suggest that cause I really liked that idea. I also like the color tape on the fans.
Chris,
We use colored (EIA) wire marking tape for everything on the robot to assist in troubleshooting. The tape is expensive, and available from Digikey. I think it is about $30 for the ten colors in a handheld dispenser. We mark the power cable, the motor wires, the speed controller or relay, the PWM cable, the PWM output, the motor, the breaker feeding that motor circuit, the breaker location and the robot location with this tape. That way if you look down and see that the red motor is not moving, you check to see if the fan on the red controller is running. If not you check to see if the red breaker is in place. If all of that is OK but you still have no control, then you check to see that the red PWM is installed at both ends. If everything is OK then you call software. Check my post in another thread where I have posted a sample of our controls spreadsheet which shows the color coding for everything on the robot.
If you don’t need all ten colors, try Home Depot - the stores around here (Greensboro, NC) have a kit of small rolls of white, blue, red, yellow, and green. I think I paid five or six bucks last year.
Thank you Al, That sounds like diagnostic checking would go super fast with the color coding. In the past we have used wire labels, but then you have to read what the label says, and have labeled the speed controllers and relays for what they are for but then you have to try and read those and sometimes some of that stuff is hard to read. I am going to make sure impliment it this year on the robot. Once again thanks for the further discription.