Would anyone in the Toronto area happen to have a spare Power Distribution board?

FIRST General Forum
1

Hi, this is kind of urgent, but I guessed CD was the best place to ask.

So team 1075 (The Sinclair Sprockets) is in need of a PDB. Our PDB was (unfortunately) made useless over the weekend in an accident involving some alumni who came by to help. He didn’t know how to use the push connectors on the roboRIO power ports, and tried to pry it open like the old ones. A team member sprinted over to stop him, but sadly the connector is completely trashed.

We’re managing to run the roboRIO by powering it from the PCM (unused) and VRM slots with a 10 amp fuse instead of a 20 amp fuse, but the VRM (and consequently, the radio) is only receiving half the current it needs, and we think it’s gonna drop connections once we start drive practice tomorrow or within the next few days.

We figured the new PDB isn’t going to arrive from AndyMark until at least next week, and we really need it to finalize electrical and do drive practice safely with no fear of electrical damage. If anyone in the Toronto area has a spare 2015 PDB that they could lend us for a few days, that would be fantastic. Thank you.

2

We have a spare one, but we are in Oakville. Not sure if you want to drive that far.

3

You should be fine leaving the fuses as they are and getting roboRIO power from the PCM-labeled connection. It won’t be legal for competition use, but everything should work. You could also power the roboRIO from a regular PDP output instead of the “dedicated” one.

I think you might be confused about what the purpose of the fuse is. It doesn’t change anything about how much current is supplied. All it will do is open up the circuit completely if something pulls too much current, to protect the wires from overheating.