We have a problem with our hook for our robot. It has burned out 6-8 ports on our brain and we can’t figure out why. We have changed the motor from red to green to blue to red again, changed the cord 2-3 times, we put anti static spray on the foam and wheels, and even changed the brain. Still after all of this it keeps burning out ports. It works for a while then randomly stops working so we change the port and it works and then the same things happen, it’s just an continuous cycle. Please help we are stumped and our next competition in on Saturday. Thank you
This seems like a classic “floating metal” problem. If I am correct, this is what is happening.
The electrostatic build up can’t run through plastic bearings on your lift. These means that the lift and the rest of your system can have different charge. Eventually, the difference becomes so great that the you have an ESD (electrostatic discharge). This fries the out the brain port.
My team had this issue in tower takeover with our lift. To fix this, our team ran a guide wire between our lift and our chassis. We never blew out brain ports after that.
Let me know if you have any questions. Hope this helps!
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I wasn’t aware of this! Definitely filing this one away, telling my org about it 
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This is untested, but legally you can use copper or steel cable running from these floating metal portions of your robot in order to prevent different charges from building up. These parts can legally classify as string, which you are allowed an unlimited amount of.
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Also anti-static spray helps but doesn’t prevent it entirely.
?
the discharging is the cause of the ports burning out, that static surge through the cable is the issue. touching the robot with steel wool will do nothing. The solution is to ground parts of the robot together so that it’s all electrically connected, so that charge doesn’t build up differently in one part of the robot over another, and surge through the cables to discharge.
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Ok thanks for telling me that
Would you mind sharing an image of this if you can? My team had had the same issue as the person who made the thread and we have been looking for solutions with no luck so I would like to try this.
I don’t have any pictures as that robot was disassembled almost 2 years ago. Just run a metal cord or wire from some point on your lift to some point on your chassis.
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Oh ok. Thank you! I’ll try that next time I have robotics.
we had this exact problem at a competition and it blew through 10 ports leading to 4 losses. This problem is most likely caused by static electricity from the game field. We fixed this by spraying static spray all around the robot wheels and claw. After doing this, we never had the problem again.
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Thank you to everyone giving suggestions, all of you have helped out so much. My team and I have been using these ideas and they are working perfectly so, we all wanted to say thank you to everyone we wouldn’t not be able to compete at our next competition with all of your guys help
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My team had this exact issue during TT. We fixed it by making the wires much shorter. Is the wire for that motor particularly long?
Look at my post history… I recently made a thread about static where I bought a meter, ran some tests, and recorded some data.
Short version: anti static spray works wonders.
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