Mute

[anduril38]

Looks great to see this back in contention, I loved the machine when I watched it in New Blood and Series 7

[bigflipper]

Hi Adam,

Did the fire at Manchester cause serious damage to the watty or did it just damage the wiring? What size of fuse did you have in line?

[team_mute]

The wotty was fine, just the molten mess of wires, we got the wotty back last week (very good service) with thicker and double wires, haven't had chance to wire it back in yet.

Haven't got a fuse in the robot

[Gasbot]

No damage to the Wotty other than melted power leads. And the fuse... it was a length of 6awg wire :blush:

Problem started (as far as I can tell) by melting the insulation on the 6awg main power wires, considering our 8awg silocone loom was nearly too hot to hold after the first fight I'd say it was a safe be that the 6awg pvc wire didn't fair too well. The wiring loom was very very very secure and considering Mute ran for a total of about 3 minutes I'd say that wires rubbing together is probably a non starter.

All the power loom is being upgraded to 4awg and two sets of 8awg going in to the wotty so it shouldn't happen again (fingers crossed).

I'm impressed with the A123's though, they can put out a serious amount of juice! The wotty looks like a great bit of kit too - and the repair service is second to none!

[PJ-27]

How on earth do you melt 6awg!? What sort of current were you drawing!?

[Gasbot]

Get 5 packs of 8s A123's, join them together in parallel, then strip the insulation off the +ve and -ve wires and touch them together. Poof - molten copper.

By my reconing you'll be able to evapourate a couple of inches of wire like that - although I wouldn't recommend doing anything like I just said - atleast not on purpose anyway.

The LEMs were pulling a good chunck of juice as I think the wotty is set at 150 amps per channel, but I've no idea how much it was acually pulling. All I know is that it was too much for 6awg pvc insulated wire but not enough to damage 8awg silicone. From what I've read off the net its all down to the insulation, pvc insulation ranges from 65°C to 105°C but silicone insulation is good for around 200°C. Our 8awg silicone loom was hot after our first fight so I'd guess that was when the damage was done and in the next fight the 6 awg wire gave up on us.

[PJ-27]

Has anybody any experience of using Tri-rated wiring? I think it came about in the dawn of solar panels when there was a need for high current but also very thin cable.

[team_mute]

Thought we would have a go at building a new bot, will put up a new build thread once we've got more sorted but here's the ram, valves and wheels sorted

[widow_twanky]

Has anybody any experience of using Tri-rated wiring? I think it came about in the dawn of solar panels when there was a need for high current but also very thin cable.

Used for many many years in electrical switchgear. Normally used in factory made stuff but I have used it occassionally to get over a problem of space and bending radius etc. It is not a new technology and there are many many tables available to show current ratings of the cable.

[Max]

Those end caps look quite thin? Are they just 15mm Aluminium?