BOOM!

Today, ptb brought a 12V 18AH lead acid cell to srg lab. Wasted, should have took video or pictures... The occurrences, however, will be described in great detail.

He was damn hao lian about the battery and confident that it could drive all 12 servo motors on the girls robot. He then started asking afew of the girls to wire up the battery and make connectors. All the while making a huge amount of noise about the tools we lack in the lab. Well, our lab has never been well equipped and will probably never be.

An example would be when i request for a laptop charger and it took like 2 months for the tso to send the order. Anyway i finally got it today.

Next ptb went to connect the battery and a bare connector to see if the connectors fit. Seeing that they fit,he attempted to remove the connectors by the wire. Instead of the connectors coming out, the connector's pins came out and touched each other. There was a great spark which made ptb let go of the wires. In an instant, the wire heated up until the insulation melted and the bare copper wire was seen glowing. It was a good thing that the current melted the wire at a certain point disconnecting the 2 ends from each other. The wire was still glowing for quite a while and smoke was everywhere. The lab was also filled with the smell of hydrochloric acid.

Pictorial illustration:





After that ptb diam diam and give those LL face and disconnect the other half of the burnt wires. Then he instructed for new connectors to be made... That is when we went to have our lunch. When we came back, the girls were running their robot by the 12V lead acid cell. However, it still could not run.

On friday i had tried to tell him that the motors needed a higher voltage to have a higher torque but he insisted that Power=Current x Voltage and that using a low voltage high current supply would work the same as high voltage low current supply. However the datasheet of the motor had indicated that the torque of the motor increases with respect to the voltage.

Soon after, he said that he would be going off to buy 4 more 6V lead acid cells and bring them tomorrow... Seriously someone should tell him: "Kiang tio ho, mai kei kiang"

Anyway sat car home today, thanks to kai yuan who drove me home in his fathers rented Grandis. =)