Wire running question

Technical Electrical
1

It looks like throughout our robot there will be aluminum tubing.
I was wondering if it was OK to run all of our wires through the tubing, or if we need to have all the wires exposed mounted somewhere else. I also would like to know what the dimensions of the control station table will be.

thanks,
Dan:D

2

Running wires through tubes is fine as far as I know. We have done so on several robots and never had any problems with inspection.

Joe J.

3

Thanks a lot for your quick response Joe.

-Dan

4

We dont usually go any longer than 3 feet and any wider than a foot.

I would recomend going anymore than that because each team only has about 6 feet long in space and you need space for the human player and spotter.

Bad Brad

P.S. I don’t know what the acual specs are if they have any???/:confused: which I dont think they do. ANY help here?

5

Yes this should help a bit, I just wanted to get an idea on how big the OI should be.

Thank you for your response,
Dan

6

Running wire through the tubing is great way to protect the wires and manage the neatness of the robot if you remember a few small items.

  1. Make sure the mechanical guys know that you have wires running through the tubing so that they DO NOT drill, tap, weld, or crush the tubing.
  2. Make sure that sharp edges (i.e. drilled holes, saw edges, joined parts) are filed clean and deburred before you pull the wires through. Once you pull you will never be able to inspect them again.
  3. Don’t over stuff wires into a tube, their current capacity rating goes way down when you do that.
  4. Never pull wires that have a junction, connector, wire splice or soldered joint inside the tube. It is not done in practice and should not be done on the robot. Joints come apart when you least expect and you can’t reach into the tube to reconnect.
    Good Luck All
7

Don’t forget to label it all first too :smiley:

8

1’x12’ shelf 3’ off the floor. look in the manual under “alliance station” under “field construction” for more info, i think it’s 2.3…