Hi,
Over the past few years my team has had unpleasant experiences with subpar wiring (done by me), which has led to the destruction of a certain amount of motors and extension cables that I do not care to say.
I found this thread, which has some nice tips about more secure wiring, but this year, lifts might go to five feet or even more.
I’ve seen some teams bundle their intake wires and just leave it like a rope (like Currahee) and others run their wires along a path that retains a constant distance from the intake, along the arm, and to the cortex. This year, what methods will teams use to run wires to their intake (if any)?
Does anyone have any tips/pictures (preferably pictures) on how they will wire their robot?
No pictures from us yet (still in prebuild phase, but really close to robot construction) but I’d imagine we’d need to have wiring running through our entire bot, since we’re reaching fairly tall, at least in our CAD drawings. Same goes for pneumatic tubing. Just be sure that when you wire your robot, the wires are clearly not in the way of anything, there’s no chance the PWM cables will be ejected from the cortex (or worse, ripped :eek:) when your robot’s lift reaches full height, and be sure to make each wire easy to distinguish from the others, and easily accessible in the event repairs need to be made. (We’ve used colored wireties in the past to help distinguish connections to various subsystems on our bot)
I tend to run the wires up the bars of the lift, only giving them some slack when near a joint. I also tend to run motor wires along one side of the lift and sensor wires and pneumatic tubing up the other side.
Just remember that good wiring a) doesn’t get caught in anything and b) lets you change out just about any component without messing up the rest of the wiring. Great wiring does all those things and looks good at the same time.
As for how I will wire my robot this year, lets just say that passive intakes make wiring a whole lot easier 
Just a few tips I learned the hard way:
There’s a reason the Motor Controller 29 page says
if you have more than one weird stuff can start happening. We’re not entirely sure why, we tested it with a multimeter and there was negligible resistance, but follow that guideline
On things like scissor lifts, make sure to leave slack around moving points or wires can start tearing
Leave a bit of slack on the wire coming out of your Cortex/Power Expander so it isn’t constantly being pulled on, but make sure to securely zip tie it down on the nearest piece of metal. The same is true on the wire coming out of the motor, give it some slack where it goes into the motor then securely zip tie it nearby. If your wires get pulled on too hard in either of these areas, you’re gonna have a bad time.
Best way I’ve found to securely connect wires is pull the wires apart near the connectors and run the zip tie through the two holes you just made, firmly connecting the two wires
IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY LABEL YOUR WIRES AT CONNECTION POINTS. In the middle of a competition you do NOT want to trace a wire the entire length of your robot looking for the point of failure, labeling will save you having to do that.
Here’s one explanation that applies when using a significant length of wire (perhaps 12 feet) between the MC29 and cortex.
The instance when a motor starts it is by definition stalled and will draw high current (4.8A per the spec for a 393). The high current will cause a voltage drop at the MC29 due to the resistance of the wire if it’s on a long extension. If the voltage at the input to the MC29 drops below 5V then the MC29 can reset and disable the motor, current now drops to zero and the voltage rises again. This sequence can repeat until the motor starts to turn.
The ability to “dress wires” so that the wiring is neat and reliable only comes with practice. A couple of things to remember.
It takes time, I would expect to spend at least 4 hours wiring a VEX competition robot, sometimes longer.
You nearly always need a longer length of wire than you think you need.
Making a disconnect is also useful because it allows you to take part of your robot off with only removing a single connection.
Here is a (very bad) video of ours from sack attack.
I didn’t think it was so bad…
I’m interested in how you accomplished this. What did you use for the two ends of the disconnect?
Thanks.
I took all of the wires on one side, taped them together to make a square, and put a zip tie behind it. This was repeated on the other side also. To keep it together, a small amount of tape was used.
[ATTACH]8518[/ATTACH]
Ah, ok. From the look of the video, it almost looked like a modified battery plug. This might come in handy since our robot is going to get fairly tall when the lift is fully extended.
There’s a new rule for VEX Skyrise, <R7l>, which makes having neat and organized wiring a lot easier.
We’re looking forward to seeing how teams make use of this rule to improve and beautify their wiring methods.
Wow, I didn’t actually realize this was Skyrise-specific. Interesting.
Well, it doesn’t seem like it’s Skyrise specific, as if there’s no problems with it, it seems like a good idea to include it in future competitions too. It does make wiring easier, though, and my team already is planning to spend a lot more time on wiring than we did last year (we finished right before our first match at one tournament :(). Thanks everyone for great the suggestions!
Even though we haven’t used it in VEX yet. Our team has had great success with using Igus cable track in FRC. Igus also likes to help out robot teams so you might be able to get a good deal on some of the track. The attached photo shows how our team used it to manage our pneumatic tubing on a 15+ foot linear lift.
If we’re bringing up FRC Wiring management, you Cannot help but notice a few teams:
(It is a great thing to strive for any of theese teams’ wiring, it has been practiced for years)
118 The Robonauts - League City, TX (2014 “Recoil”- Team 118 Robonauts 2014 - YouTube )
This robot has lots of intricate parts and the electronics panel in person, is just amazing, they use shrink wrap for most connections.
4488 Shockwave - Hilsboro. OR (2014 “Wildfire”- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEhQnKbRz-0 )
You can barely even notice the wires.
1114 Simbotics - St. Catharines, ON, Canada (2014 “Simbot Evolution” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSj-OAiwRNg&list=UUUSvVNsNpOX8kFryYAO4NTA&index=7 )
Every year this team has a unique look, and their wire management is neatly organized.
148 Robowranglers - Greenville, TX (2013 “Viper”- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYgpg0k4uwI )
This one has attention to detail in electronics.
1241 Theory6 - Nissisauga, ON Canada (2014 “Leviathan” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezujJJEYXp0 )
This team’s electronics panel, has extremely neat wiring.
33 Killer Bees - Auburn Hills, MI (2014 “Buzz XIX”- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btQtnyxyY8E )
Again, effective wiring.
Lastly, and probably most importantly…
254 Cheesy Poofs - San Jose, CA (2011 “Slipstream” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJVGgaAJefo )
Every year they surprise us with even more impossible wiring. In 2011, they used a linear lift, and you can notice that they use a cable track, and also minimal metal.
All, and all… If there’s anything we should learn from these robots, is that each one of them is unique, and all have effective wiring, but the most common trend, is to make the wires, practically invisible. It just takes time, its worth it! (Below is links to all the teams, and a few more, check out their “Photos” section, and you’ll see their impossible wiring)
https://ccisdrobonauts.org (118 Robonauts)
http://www.team254.com (254 Cheezy Poofs)
http://glencoerobotics.com (4488 ShockWave)
http://www.simbotics.org (1114 Simbotics)
http://www.robowranglers148.com (148 Robowranglers)
http://www.theory6.ca (1241 Theory6)
http://www.killerbees33.com (33 Killer Bees)
http://www.team610.com (610 Crescent Coyotes)
http://www.texastorque.org (1477 Texas Torque)
http://www.2056.ca (2056 OP Robotics)
http://www.waialuarobotics.com (359 Hawaiian Kids)
http://lasguerrillas.com (469 Las Guerillas)
http://www.teamcodeorange.com (3476 Code Orange)
Congrats, Welcome to the FRC World