Power Splitter for "Y" Cable
team3141
Entry ID #: 2042
Created: Fri, Jan 8, 2016 4:46 PM
The piece I created would be useful for many different projects. The piece provides the same amount of power to each cable as it would to one cable. What issue I see it would fix is that when one would use a “Y” splitter cable you would only get half the power (amps) to each cable. This design would fix that. The components are as followed: three external cables, one battery connector, one internal power splitter for the battery. This last component still needs figuring out but most likely we would use an analog amplifier or something to that degree. The power splitter would then give equal amounts of power to each cable for what was lost in the splitting of cables. The battery would be able to be replaced easily by just having a simple battery connecter connected by a cable. The cables for the motors are already manufactured by the Vex company and can be easily made for this product. The only main concern for this part is the internal power splitter, the design and other components with the analog amplifier wou make the priece simpler to make otherwise it is already all made and easily manufactured. I believe it would be a very simple design that wouldn’t take much time to create and at a low cost. How I used Inventor to help me was to provide a rough size for it and how all the components would be connected. It was simple to use and it had the efficiency I needed. I started off with measuring an actual wire and making a wire half in Inventor. I then started brainstorming ideas that would solve issues and how I would solve them. I then realized that my team was always using motors in pairs and at high power but couldn’t quite get them lined up and we didn’t want to use a “y” splitter because it only provided half the power. so I came up with the idea of having a power splitter to compensate the power loss. So I came up with a simple design that took up little space and designed it on Inventor. This project helped me learn how power is used and that sometimes the simple designs are overlooked because people forget what happens when they have an issue but can’t solve it with the materials they have so they have to get creative. I will absolutely use Inventor in the future for designing other parts and help me to envision objects. It has helped my team by designing pieces and to help create our robot. Inventor will help me in the future with my career, I am looking to go into Biomechanical Engineering, by helping me design products for customers. This experience has been such a learning curve and interesting process for myself and others. Other teams that I have worked with have said this piece would have been very useful if they had been able to use it. This design would help with issues that my team and I have run into and I’m sure it would help a lot of others.