B3.1 Maintenance and Triage

Metal Shavings

1. Preventative care is the most important part.
2. Have a vacuum ready and a cover towel/cloth/shirt to avoid metal shavings from falling into the robot. When drilling or cutting over the robot, have the vacuum on and a cover under the part being modified to catch any shavings and debris.
3. Tip the robot in a way that the shaving will fall away from the robot when possible when doing a lot of drilling or machining on the robot.

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Cleaning Rollers and Wheels

1. Use simple green and microfiber cloth to clean rollers and wheels
1. use iso alcohol if you don’t have simple green
2. also the rollers on omni and mecanum wheels
1. Q-tips can help
2. Wipe down before every match to increase traction / grip

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Lubricant

• Lubrication - using a substance to reduce the friction between two surfaces.
• Planetary lubricant - TRI-Flow, just a few drops on each gear.
• Tri-FLow https://amzn.to/2Y3fLde
• Chain Lubricant - TRI-Flow, just a few drops on the sprockets
• Gearbox Lubrication - WD40 PTFE Dry spray in as you rotate the gearbox, try to coat all the teeth.
• https://amzn.to/2rNEgyM

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Mechanical Maintenance

• Keep things clean
• Wipe rollers and wheels (dust can cause intakes and launchers to perform worse)
• Clean wheels, swap wheels/tread if needed
• Keep everything tight
• Make sure you don’t have loose bolts/nuts
• Replace rivets if they begin to look loose
• Remove critical bolts and re-apply loctite when needed.

Bumper Maintenance

• Check the numbers for any damage
• Use the sail tape to make replacement numbers or parts of numbers
• Check the bumpers for any tears or rips
• Bumper repair tape
• Check the mounting hardware and ensure there is limited movement.

Electrical Maintenance

• Check all 6 awg connectors crimps and screws
• Check for loose battery wires.
• Check the SB50s to ensure they are fully seated
• Tape over an exposed wires or connectors.
• Vacuum around the roboRIO, and other electronics
• Tape over any exposed connectors when possible
• Ensure all Anderson Powerpoles are zip tied together

Triage

Triage

• Triage = Emergency Repairs
• You are mitigating a problem not fully repairing it.
• This is for when you don’t have time or supplies to fully replace a broken part of the robot.
• There is often times when you can’t fully design and implement a repair at the venue and just need something to work right now.

Triage Procedures

1. Identify the problem
1. This is the most critical step in the repair process, always be looking for potential problems
2. Notify the rest of the team
• Don’t try to solve a problem yourself without letting everyone else in the pit know, and also telling the mechanism lead and Allen (who ever your lead robot mentor is).
3. Determine how much time we have to fix it
• When does the robot have to be on the field next?
4. Suggest solutions and prepare supplies/tools
• Talk through possible ways we can fix this issue from a full proper replacement to the triage hacks we will discuss in the next few slides.
• Start getting drills, snips, zip ties, rivets, electrical tools, etc out and ready based on what the problem is. Predict what we will need to fix it before we get to that step.
5. Choose the best option based on time and implement the solution.

Zip Ties

• Often the fastest fix is to just zip ties something together.
• This is by no means a good fix but if you are in queue or even on the field and see that something is loose, zip ties can be done without other tools.
• Are extremely versatile in triage situations
• Add multiple if you are worried about them breaking
• Even through the same holes if needed.

VHB Tape

• VHB tape is incredibly strong when applied properly.
• Wipe down both surfaces and put a lot of pressure on the parts you are securing together.
• When you don’t have time to drill/rivet, VHB tape can save the day.
• Quickly remounting electronics, guards, or side panels can be done with VHB.
• In emergencies you could even VHB a motor face to a plate to secure it if the threads have been damaged or the bolts sheared.

Cracked plates

• Gussets can be riveted onto cracked plates to allow them to hold together.
• Tape can be used around thin plates if it’s not possible to rivet.
• Ideally tape all the way around a plate/rod
• Add a splint stick to add stiffness if possible. A bolt can work for this or any other stiff material.

Photo: FRC#2363

4337 Brackets

• These small angle brackets are very useful for triage repairs.
• You can quickly drill a few holes and rivet on multiple of these brackets to re-attach entire structures to your robot.

Thin Lexan

• 1/16” thick lexan can be easily cut with aviation snips/shears and bent by hand.
• A few holes drilled into and rivets can make many odd shapes to patch broken parts or add guards around parts of the robots.

Drill Pin

• If you can drill a hole through a shaft/hub you can add a bolt as a pin
• A zip tie can work in some applications
• As a last resort you can use a small drill bit to drill through a hub and a shaft and intentionally snap the bit to use it as an improvised pin.
• We did this on a #25 hub sprocket on the 2017 intake.

Tape as shaft collar

• Wrapping electrical tape/gaff tape/duct tape around a shaft can act as a quick shaft collar to keep a wheel or shaft in place.

Electrical repairs

• Electrical tape can be used to repair cuts in wires.
• If a wire is broken or even just a crimp in a hard to reach place it’s often easier to just add a new wire.
• You only need to disconnect the old wire not fully remove it from the robot.
• Same for motor controllers, it’s often easier to just tape a spare motor controller on top of a broken one and wire it in then it is to remove the old one. This is another reason it’s useful to not be at the weight limit.

Adding weight to a robot

• Sometimes you need to add weight to a partner.
• One of the easiest ways to do this is to clamp a vise to the robot.
• They can weight 8+ lbs.
• Strapping or taping other heavy tools to a robot also works.
• Dead blow mallets, large pliers, hammers, etc

Example: Improvised Hard Stop

“basically what happened is we bent one cylinder, which caused our intake to be lopsided enough to make intaking from either side extremely difficult. We had five minutes until the next match, threw that hardstop in there so the intake would work in that match, which bent the other cylinder, then swapped both cylinders later” - FRC#2220

Example: Wrench Splint

FRC#930 fixing a cracked polycarbonate plate by zip tying a wrench to it as a splint.

Example: Gusset Fix

“We didn't have an extra of these gussets the day before IRI and broke the bearing hole, so we bolted on another VEX gusset to serve as the bearing hole” - FRC#5254

Example: Clamped Intake

“Here is our intake being held together by a clamp that has been turned inside out, and then duct taped onto the robot” - cmot

Example: Milk Crate Strap Guide

“In 2018, we had trouble guiding our ratcheting strap which went to a winch to lift our robot. The solution we came up with at competition was to cut a corner out of a milk crate (game piece that year). We bolted that to the top of our elevator carriage and used some zip ties to guide the strap. You can see the part in the top middle. Worked great!” - FRC#1745