Anderson PowerPoles use two parts, a metal contact and a plastic housing. The metal contact is what conducts the electricity, and the plastic housing holds the connectors together. The neat part of using Andersons is that the plastic housings are also designed to connect to the sides of other andersons, and you can also add retention devices like powerpole retention pins or thin zipties. This allows you to create groups of Andersons held together securely for a clean and organized wiring setup.

9586 Angelbotics Video Demonstration

First, you'll want to strip the insulation until there is enough exposed wire to slide the metal contact all the way in, but not too much such that bits of wire can stick out of the end. For 45A contacts, this is usually the shortest length on the self-adjusting vice grip wire strippers. On 30A or 15A contacts, you will want to go a bit longer.

Once the wire is stripped correctly, slide the contact onto the wire. If you are using a 30A contact on 10 gauge or 12 gauge silicone insulated stranded wire (found on Neos), then the wire will likely be too thick to fit into the contact. For this, you can fit as much wire in as you can and cut off the excess. If there is exposed wire, you can use a small piece of heat shrink to cover it up. Try to minimize the length of the contact that is covered by the heat shrink as it may interfere with the plastic housing.

Try to orient the contact on the wire in the orientation you want to put the housing on. Place it into the crimper in the hole designated for the size of contact you used. Crimp until the handle releases. Do a quick tug test to make sure the contact is properly crimped on.

Next, you'll insert the metal contact into the plastic housing. You will need to orient the metal contact in the housing such that the "tongue" of the contact points towards the metal part on the other end of the housing. See the video for a better description. Push the wire and contact into the housing until you hear or feel a click. Using a pair of very thin needle-nose pliers will help (I think there's also a tool for this you can buy). Do a tug test to make sure the wire won't pull out of the housing (this happens pretty often when not done properly).

Then, once you have crimped the rest of the wires in the group, you can slide them into each other to creat a block that can be ziptied together. Each side of the housing will either have a male or female bit for sliding into the conjugate part on the other anderson. Make sure to keep the metal bits on each of the andersons pointed the same direction so connecting the two sides will be easier. Once the block has been connected, you can push thin zipties through the blocks in the holes that form to lock the andersons together.

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Wagos are a popular brand of lever nut style electrical connectors. They feature a lever that, when pressed down, locks the wire in place. These are typically used for their ease of use and quick assembly. They may also be able to better hand higher currents compared to andersons accoridng to REV's testing. However, they are generally considered less secure as the grip the lever nut has on the wire can degrade, especially without strain relief. If something dislodges the lever or the lever breaks off, the wire can come out.

Wagos also come in different shapes and sizes. The most commonly used Wago is the inline 221 series Wago. It can be used for many applications from power wires to nearly CAN or signal wires. Though wires on either ends of the spectrum may have difficulties in fitting properly, teams have found them to be able to handle most anything used in FRC, especially for quick repairs.

Andymark How Do I

Soldering is the process of joining metal parts to form mechanical or electrical bonds. In FRC, soldering is mostly used to create electrically conductive bonds between wires or circuit boards. Solder can be used to rejoin a wire that was ripped or join two wires. Soldering provides a strong connnection and can even join damaged wires, but it also changes the mechanical properties of joint, being unable to bend like normal wire. We often use it to fix the SparkMax encoder wires which can break easily.

[insert soldering tutorial]

Molex makes a bucnh of stuff that's used to make the small, three-pin style connectors often seen in frc. It involved a metal contact that is crimped onto the wire and a plastic housing that has a male and female end which is used to connect things together. This can be often seen used on CAN and PWM wires.

We don't have the tools or expertise to use these currently, so whenever we need to create this type of connector, we just solder on an existing crimp to the wire.

Similar to the Molex ones, JST is a style of connector mostly seen on REV products like the throughbore encoder and sparkmaxes. It is a friction fit connector, but it is a very tight fit so it takes some effort to disconnect them. When removing one, use a screwdriver or other tool to pull on the connector itself. Pulling on the wires can rip them or at least weaken their fit inside the connector potentially leading to issues later on.

Ferrules are little metal caps that go on the ends of stripped wires. It gets crimped onto the wire and keeps all the strands together. Each size of ferrule corresponds to one size of wire and is denoted by a color. These are used whenever bare wires is used like in the PDH and other lever nut or weidmuller style connectors.

Make sure to use the dark red crimper, the orange one doesn't work very well. The jaws of the crimper should close all the way whenever you pull the handles without anything in them.

There are also ring connectors which as crimped onto a wire and then screwed into a terminal on the other side. These are used on the orignal Sparks and now the Krakens if you don't use the powerpole adaptor board. They work fine, but you will need to insulate them after installing and they need to be torqued to a spec to prevent them from falling off.

There are couple boxes of various electrical connector Andymark. Most of these we no longer use, but mixed in there are ferrules and ring connectors.