Power Distribution Panel
winhtckirby
Entry ID #: 3835
Created: Wed, Jan 11, 2017 6:01 PM
For the Texas Instruments challenge, I chose a broken Power Distribution Panel from First Robotics. My goal was to understand what led the PDP to fail, and how to potentially make it better. Inside I found the problem to be the regulator chip, probably due to heat overload. This chip monitors the power to individual components and allows CAM to work in the PDP. I think the solution would be to increase passive cooling on the chip, possibly adding a aluminum heat sink to rase surface area for dissipation of heat. The other main point that I learned is that soldering tends to be an extremely useful skill.
