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[babeth]

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Weight should never be a consideration for whether or not to include failsave devices in your robot. You should always -and I mean ALWAYS- think about safety first and worry about the weight afterwards. Even a feather weight can be dangerous enough to harm bystanders hence I would personally advice using failsafe devices, especially if your robot has a powerful weapon as you say. I do hope you also have your activation area (removable link, switch for the receiver and gas bottle tap) away from your weapons reach ? All these are supposed to have been considered when building your robot.

Call me a nitpicker but it is a lifetime habit to think up doom scenarios in any situation. Bad influence from my late stephfather there I suppose...

[Guest]

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Just a personal opinion but i would not trust the electronize as a failsafe judging from what i have read above I want to know that the failsafe is going to kick in EVERY time it is needed.

I am just about to start my feather once we have repaired the damage to Thorak and i was planning to use the Electronize on their own but now i think ill be buying some FS1s or Pauls version to go inline. Better safe than sorry i feel.

I think Tech checks can be worrying enough especially on a new robot without having to worry about weather your failsaf will work or not.

[Mouldy]

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Elizabeth :
A main concern of mine would be that if you have to many failsafes in a circuit they might start to cancel each other out? However you are apsolutly right about having failsafes, I think most people can spair those exstra 10grams or so for 3 small failsafes.

Stu:

If you were talking about the Ripmax Xtra Failsafes there dimentions are 25x10x4mm.

If people out there are short on weight (like James) I belive these would probably be a better investment than the FS1s as (acording to Paul cooper) no 1 has yet come back from robotwars auditions saying they werent robotwars legall, All that event organizers check (or should check for) is weather or not the robot failsafes...Brand names shouldnt make a differance. Have fun.

Regards
Dave moulds
Team Turbine/PLF

[big_nipper]

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I agree with dave, We have a PCM Rx and this does as the failsafes for robotwars fine but we also have a failsafe built into the interface board incase the Rx stops working or we use the PPM Rx.

[jamesb]

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if a ripmax xtra failsafe is legal, could someone at the fra please give us a yes or no?

if we have a list of accepted failsafes, then people can be sure theirs are legal, this is a solution should failsafes be sold out at any patricular vendor, it gives people options.

[big_nipper]

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James, one thing I dont agree with is limiting what compaines you have to use. Ive had no problems with ours and dont see why I should be forced into 1 or 2 models. Recommending them is fine though just make sure people know that if they find something else it can still be used providing it works of course.

[typhoon_driver]

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with fail safes should it not be the case that if it works on the day and the people in charge are happy that it works then the robot should run?

[jamesb]

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no, I dont mean limit it, I mean put up a list of approved failsafes, so if you are shopping you can either buy an unlisted one, or buy one you are 100% sure is legal.

for your machine, it may not be on the list but its legal.

what Im suggesting is a list to help those first time buyers

Cheers
James

[john_frizell]

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My experience with Electronize controkllers and their built in failsafes has been 100% positive. I have had robots using these failsafes tech checked at Robot Wars a total of 8 times and have never failed. Older Electronize controllers have an annoying built in glitch that lightly pulses the motor every couple of seconds but this was fixed a couple of years ago and any you buy from Technobots wont have the glitch (which was not enough to move the robot in any case).

[m2xt]

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There has been any number of failsafes used in Robot Wars and I would guess that the majority have passed the rather basic tech check. Many of these failsafes are home made and typically only check for valid pulse width. The FS1 according to Ripmax was replaced by the Ripmax Xtra but it does not offer the same performance as the FS1. It lacks one check and that is for battery level. However, if the battery level falls to such a level that the receiver begins to output garbage, then you would expect the Failsafe to detect this and act accordingly. So the lack of battery monitoring should not be an issue. A Ripmax Xtra was sent to Derek Foxwell by Ripmax for testing but no results were forthcoming to my knowledge. Technobots has sold hundreds of the Xtra failsafes so it would be reasonable to assume that many of these were used in S7 machines and I have not had any negative feedback from any customer about them.

The time has probably come where we should move on from the Mentorn led techical rules and allow the FRA to lead the way with the new standards. Perhaps the FRA could specify the requirements of the failsafe along with a selection of off the shelf ones that meet the criteria.

Electronize analogue controllers / switchers regretfully do not have the best failsafe logic. When a transmitter is turned off as part of the tech check, many receivers are known to still give out spurious pulse that the basic analogue controllers accept as genuine signals resulting in sparadic operation. The microprocessor based controllers have a much better failsafe routine that to my knowledge is effective. Electronize have developed a new PIC based switcher that also has an effective failsafe built in, this was developed for Technobots originally for one of our commercial customers but I hope to make it generally available.

It is quite possible that the tech check will not spot an inadequate failsafe as the level of testing is not thourough enough. This then tends to lean towards only pre-approved types being used. Should this approach be taken, then custom made failsafes would be excluded which is rather unfair. We should also re-visit many of the rules we have had to comply with over the years and decide on their purpose and validity today with the current breed of bots / arena.

As always, nothing is ever straight forward. Perhaps one for the FRA electronics advisor to comment on.

Paul

[jim]

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Ive seen one (cheap) 40MHz receiver which would output a valid servo pulse very occasionally when the transmitter is turned off. Since then I changed my interface code so it required four valid pulses in a row before activating.

I make my own failsafes (built into my interfaces) and would really hate to see only pre-approved types being valid, but I can see the problem. Would peer review help? Im happy to make my circuit diagrams and code available for review and to review others work.

[john_frizell]

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The Electronize controllers I was refering to are the 30 amp ones. They have microprocessors. Paul,were you refering to those above or just to the 10 and 15 amp ones?

[m2xt]

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John, the failsafe action on the 30A controllers should be fine as should the 15A CPU based ones. See http://www.technobots.co.uk/en-gb/dept_81.htmlhttp://www.technobots.co.uk/en-gb/dept_81.html for the whole Electronize range.