How many people tether up right before putting their robot onto the playing field to get the pressure in the pneumatic system up? Is there a better way of doing this like having an extra battery and just connecting the pump to it until it hits 120 psi?
I’d imagine that would work just fine. We don’t have a compressor on the bot, so during the quarter-finals at LI we had the compressor mounted on our cart connected to a battery and we just ran a long line onto the field between matches to charge it up, it was awesome, felt just like a pit crew;) 
95 did just what you described, used a teather to let the compresser charge up.
One of the few problems I had with the NJ regional was the pace they set during Q rounds. We would literaly finish a match and be called back before getting to the pits. I think matches were being called 3 or 4 in advance at one point. I understand why this happend, but it was annoying not being able to have the pit crew replace the battery and have to do it while on deck.
Anyways, since our system had a (small) leak in it, sitting on deck for 2 matchs would put us down around 100 psi, low enough to cause problems in the match. So during the match before ours I would teather up and top off the tanks. By finals we had gotten good at predicting how long we would need and had no problems with low pressure going into a match. Give your self at least a minute to connect, top off and disconnect in time to place your 'bot.
-Andy A.
From what i understand, you guys do not hve compressors on your bots. What do you use your pnuematics for then because wouldn’t that limit you on how much many times you can release a grpper, or put down a brake, etc.?
We must tether up after a match to get our air pressure up to 60psi. we also must reset our pneumatics so they are in the right position to release our wings. We need a compressor so that it is possible to puch our brakes up and down
I actually built a second operator interface (known as “the tether box”) with a couple of switches. With the tether box, we can perform a few operations like cycling the compressor (very important since we dont have any air tanks) and setting the pnuematic wing release cyclinders (so we can load the wings), while the main OI is set up on the alliance station.
Perseus, look at my post in here:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2654
The Lucas: That is a great idea!
Yup… we tether up before going out into the match. There aren’t any noticable leaks in the pneumatics so the system holds air well.
*Originally posted by The Lucas *
**I actually built a second operator interface (known as “the tether box”) with a couple of switches. With the tether box, we can perform a few operations like cycling the compressor (very important since we dont have any air tanks) and setting the pnuematic wing release cyclinders (so we can load the wings), while the main OI is set up on the alliance station. **
That sounds pretty cool and all but how do you do that without using the OI board? I know we could use something like that. In the Long Island regional in the elimination rounds I had to run like crazy all over the place with the controls. From the station to the robot, back to the station, and what not.
FIRST says whatever you can do in programing is legal, so we made a little trick (don’t ask me how but if your interested ill give the email address of our programmer) Our little trick is we have a wire with an Anderson connector that matches that of the pump that is always hot (its not straight off the battery or anything else that FIRST wouldn’t like) so you can just plug up the wire to charge the tanks and such right before you go on the field, makes it a lot easier when you don’t need anything extra like a tether or the OI, Its always worked for us.
asher
This year, we have our compresser on our robot. Last year, we didn’t. We went around, with the compresser mounted a bord (a very nicley done bord, thx Dave!!), and a battery, and when it came into the pits, we just powered up the compresser w/ the battery, hooked up the right hoses, and than pumped away! We didn’t leak, so we where able to even leave the tanks full over night, and it still stayed full till our next match the next day. (Say that sencence 3 times fast :p)
It’s important that we have full pressure because we use pneumatics for our most important devices (gear-shifting and transferring the weight of the goals.) Because of this we like to label one battery the “pit battery” and use it to fill up our pneumatics just before a match. We are very paranoid about our batteries so we always try to make sure the one we are going to use for a match has not been used at all since it came off the charger. Also if we are called, but we still have some matches left before we play, we leave the battery charging and run out to get it just before our match.
*Originally posted by tritium *
**That sounds pretty cool and all but how do you do that without using the OI board? I know we could use something like that. In the Long Island regional in the elimination rounds I had to run like crazy all over the place with the controls. From the station to the robot, back to the station, and what not. **
5 min solution:
You do need the oi, if the punp is your only concern , just tape the oi to a old battery w/ nothing on it (we used a big wire tie and duck tape for a handle and velcrowed the oi in the battery, you dont need to plug anything into any port besides the tether) , then put the tether to the oi while using that old battery to charge it instead of the one on the bot (to save power) then just disconnect the battery and oi and recconnect the match battery, that way you will be charged in 2 respects 
Plus you can leave everything plugged untill right before the match, so no worry foe leaks.
*Originally posted by tritium *
**That sounds pretty cool and all but how do you do that without using the OI board? I know we could use something like that. In the Long Island regional in the elimination rounds I had to run like crazy all over the place with the controls. From the station to the robot, back to the station, and what not. **
picture this. a box. on it is the operator interface and two switches. One swich lifts a cylinders for wing deplyment, the other for our wing ancors. It is much more mobile than our real control panel, which has joysticks etc. It proved useful when there was a false start at philly and we had to reset