Okay, now that the bots are all shipped. Here is the question that everyone is afraid to ask.
Just what size wire did they ship us in the kit? The unmarked red and black wire that was listed in the parts list as 10 AWG seems to be a little small. Is it 10 AWG or 12 AWG?
We have about 2 hours of work to do in the pits if we were sent 12 AWG wire under the pretense that it was 10 AWG. :mad:
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>We did inventory in the beginning of recieving the parts and did
>not relize the Gauge of the red and black wire at that time was
>#12. At the time of wiring it looks like the wire that was to be
>#10 (Red and Black) was actualy #12.
>With the 12 in the kit are we allowed to use #12 with the drill
>motors etc…???A) No. You will have to use the MINIMUM wire size specified.
Refer to Table 2.1 in “Robot Electrical systems” of “the robot” part
of the manual. You will have to use 10 AWG, red & black wire on the
Drill motor.-FIRST KL
When we recieved the kit I thought the wire was a little different. I just assumed it was due to a thinner insulation though. When that post came out about the wire size I just went ahead and switched it all out. Better to be safe than sorry. It is very difficult to tell by sight the difference between 10 and 12 gauge but as this is a known issue I’m sure they’ll be looking for it. Now for the person who brought this to FIRST’s attention 4 days before ship… just kidding. 
Our electrical engineer was almost certain that it was 10 gauge with thinner insulation. So what we did was use the wire from the year before and packed the thinner stuff to take with us for back up.
We had this debate too…our black wire that FIRST sent us was definately 10g. The red wire on the other hand…well it was 12. It was really bad that we realized it after we had our drive base wired…but at least we noticed it over a week before ship date…
Maybe if they gave you wire that had the AWG number written on the side… :rolleyes:
We had the same discussions and actually came down to measuring the strand diameters and adding up for the number of strands. It is definitely smaller than the #10 we have purchased from Home Depot so we were concerned. The difference we found is that some manufacturers in order to optimize the wire will use different size strands combined into a single wire. By combining several large diameter strands with a few small diameter strands you get a cable that is stiff, larger overall diameter, but a #10. Using smaller diameter strands gives a better packing bundle which results in a smaller overall diameter, more flexible, but less sturdy wire. As a footnote, adding info to the wire insulation such as AWG gauge and manufacturer adds cost so it is easy to see why this wire is unmarked.
Good Luck all,
73 Greg de WB9UVJ
*Originally posted by Al Skierkiewicz *
73 Greg de WB9UVJ
OK, my inquiring mind wants to know… What does 73 mean? (Other than TigerBolt 
)
73 is ham radio lingo for “best regards” furthermore “de” means “this is”
btw WB9UVJ if your going to the nats you may want to check this out 
We already has all of our wiring done, and I did it on two separate days, so half is right and half is wrong, I have no clue which is which. So unless an inspector can tell me which ones to change (which our electrical engineer cant even tell) I’m not going to worry about it.
asher
The gauge wire from the kit appeared to be the same as the wire coming out of the Chiaphua motors, so I assume that it would be acceptable (especially since it was labled as #10 on the checklist).
As one of our engineers put it:
I didn’t notice any big difference when I was wiring, but it would not have occurred to me to question what they supplied. Personally, I would find it a pretty dirty trick if they were to actually DQ teams for using what they supplied.
*Originally posted by RebAl *
furthermore “de” means “this is”
I had that figured out. It looked too much like Spanish or French for it to mean anything else.
Yeah, 73 has been used for many, many years on Morse Code as a general “best regards” closing, and is one of the few “shortcuts” to survive onto voice modes also.
Hams seem to forget that the general public doesen’t know about that stuff
This is certainly off the subject but…in Morse code (CW to hams) it is more efficient to send abbreviated messages that all will understand or has such a distinctive pattern all listeners know where you are in a message. So a typical CW (code)message ending would be…
“OK GREGG FB TNX FER QSO CUL 73 KB9WTE DE WB9UVJ KN” which translated reads “OK Gregg, fine business, thanks for the conversation, see you later and best regards to station KB9WTE this is station WB9UVJ waiting for return call from that staion only.”
So 73 --… …–
KB9WTE -.- -… ----. .-- - .
this is (de) -… .
WB9UVJ .-- -… ----. …- …- .—
K (clear and listening for any callers) -.-
*Originally posted by Al Skierkiewicz *
**So a typical CW (code)message ending would be…
“OK GREGG FB TNX FER QSO CUL 73 KB9WTE DE WB9UVJ KN” **
Oh my! That’s even worse than the way some people type here in CD. 
Yep,
But you know I couldn’t run that message through the spell check!