I have a cortex that is between 2-4 years old. It works well, but anytime the battery connector gets bumped it re-starts the coretx. Is there a way to fix it and still have it be legal for tournaments?
Use a battery extension wire and make sure that can’t move, also so that whenever you unplug a battery it doesn’t wear out the cortex further.
Also make sure you’re using a charged 9V backup battery, as that will maintain the VEXnet connection if the main battery briefly loses connection.
I have a cortex that has the exact same issue and it’s only 2-3 months old. I haven’t used it for competition yet so I don’t know if other robots bumping me could trigger the problem. I always though it was something the cortex did on purpose to avoid further damage or something else like that. I’m interested in how to fix this problem as well.
This year we used extenders on all of our cortex’s, but didn’t back in the old days. Haven’t tried using a 9V, for some reason I only think of them during tournaments, but was hoping for a solution that would fix the issue more permanently if that is possible.
My team was having a similar issue at Worlds this year. We got a replacement battery connection from Vex, but I haven’t soldered it on yet. I think the plug on the Cortex is the issue.
It could also be the batteries if they are old enough. We lent new batteries to 127A because their cortex would lose connection with their batteries but not ours
@JustinM Our batteries are just as old as the cortex.
We only have this problem when the battery is not secured and the cables can get tugged around. If the cable is secured, then we have no problems. This happens with all our batteries. Here’s a video of the cable problems in action:
As you can see, the robot can survive pretty severe impacts when the battery is secured, but if it isn’t and the battery gets tugged even just a little, it looses connection. I don’t really see this as a major problem because my battery is pretty much always going to be secured in competition, but this is super annoying when you’re testing.
I’m not sure if this is intentional, maybe not. Maybe the cortex detects a fault and wants to protect against a potential short circuit. That’s what I always thought this was. What do you think of it?
Phantom that driving base looks way over engineered. 
We are having problems with the battery mounted and a hit like you had would have easily reset our cortex. I am not having problems with any other of our cortex, so i’m thinking it’s not a battery thing, but a “inside the cortex” thing. I’ll look into a replacement battery connection and see if that’s an option.
Tweeze the connectors shut a bit and use a power cord extension cable. We have had similar issues and the closing the female receptacle should help some. Using the cable extension minimizes stress.
Maybe the VEX Rubber links have a good use besides flinging nylon spacers across the room. They might provide some shock mount for the Cortex. We always use the battery extension cable on all our teams’ robots to save the cortex connector.
One of our teams also shoved a little amount of paper in the port of the Cortex so it provides a lot of pressure on the battery plug so it can’t lose connection in an impact.
I’m going to be that guy. Sorry, but
That’s not legal
How so? Quote me the rule that states it? Cause I never found a rule that outlawed it.
Paper isn’t a vex part . . .
It’s for securing a connection and is commercially available.
It says the product must be “used solely for the purpose of bundling or wrapping” and may not serve “a function beyond protecting and managing cables.” Doesn’t say anything about securing. What’s more is that by the letter of the rule it only applies to “2-wire, 3-wire, 4-wire cables, and pneumatic tubing.”
And then there’s this Q&A in which Karthik said, “The intent of this rule is to allow teams to use commercially available bundling solutions. If we were to allow a raw material such as foil, we would basically be allowing any random raw material, which goes beyond what we were trying allow.”
So if asked, Karthik would say, “Sorry your stuff is slightly damaged, your solution is illegal. You need to spend another $250 on a new one?” I guess it’s possible, but really? There is no unfair advantage from having a fully functional Cortex.
Well they’ve told people they can’t add things to their joystick to keep kids from accidentally wrecking the ethernet connection by ripping the cable out, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they said that. I’m not saying the rules aren’t dumb, but it isn’t legal by the game manual.
Do what Team80_Giraffes said and bend the connector back; that usually helps. I also have had VEX repair the cortex battery connectors for free in the past, but sometimes it’s the male ends on the batteries that go bad. I agree this is an annoying problem and it would be nice if we had better connectors.