FIRST Robotics Competition

Electrical Components

This supplies all the power to the robot. It is a single 12 V battery. They are sealed to prevent battery acid from leaking. If they do leak, however, be sure to use baking soda to neutralize the acid.

Robot Battery

This is the main circuit breaker for the robot and has two roles: the main robot power switch and a protection device for the robot. It is wired to the positive terminals of the robot battery and power distribution boards.

120 A Circuit Breaker

The power distribution board is designed to distribute power from the battery to various robot components through auto-resetting circuit breakers.

Power Distribution Board

The snap action circuit breakers are used with the power distribution board to limit current to the circuits. By doing this, we are limiting the amount of the 12 V that go to each of the different robot components.

Snap Action Circuit Breakers

The cRIO is the brain of the robot. This takes all of the code and distributes it to where it needs to go. It is connected to the 24V port on the power distribution board, and an ethernet port to the router.

cRIO

The digital sidecar is a breakout board which converts which converts the signals from the computer into signals used to control the robot.

Digital Sidecar

The radio is used to provide wireless communications to the robot from a laptop or other computer.

The D-Link Radio

This takes the 12 V power output from the battery and converts it to a 5 V power to the radio.

12 V – 5 V Power Converter

The Jaguar (Jag) is a speed motor controller. It is controlled using a PWM cable. One end is connected to the motor and the other end is connected to the power distribution board. The PWM cable is attached to the digital sidecar.

Jaguar Motor Controller

The spike is a motor controller, but only has two options: on and off. The spike is connected to the digital sidecar via a PWM cable. It is connected to the device that it is controlling and the power distribution board.

SPIKES

Your homework is to write an explanation (length is not important) on how all these parts work to control the robot.

It is due tomorrow.

We will have a quiz on this information on Monday!

Homework