Samantha Catching FIRE - Competing tomorrow...

[FTC5703]

Our Samantha started smoking and we had what looks like a transistor near the USB input melt/blister and scorched the board.
We borrowed one from our sister school (also competing tomorrow) after checking all wires and connections and it just burned up too.

Issue occurred when our controller button was pushed asking for a DC motor to drive.

Only thing we added today was a sensor multiplexer so we're looking into that... but can't keep destroying Samanthas.
Anyone ever have something occur like this?

[R2D2]

Never heard of this happening. Something has to be wrong with your wiring. Thats what it sounds like.... Stupid question, it isn't wired into a motor port is it??

[Mr 300]

Wiring Problem with Robot

Our Samantha started smoking and we had what looks like a transistor near the USB input melt/blister and scorched the board.
We borrowed one from our sister school (also competing tomorrow) after checking all wires and connections and it just burned up too.

Issue occurred when our controller button was pushed asking for a DC motor to drive.

Only thing we added today was a sensor multiplexer so we're looking into that... but can't keep destroying Samanthas.
Anyone ever have something occur like this?

Hi FTC5703, the problem that is occurring is that you are missing a ground wire (or have a very loose one) somewhere from the battery through the motor/servo controllers. As a result when the motor needs to draw power to run, the 10+ amps are pulled through the tiny little ground plane inside the Samantha Module. Given that it was designed to handle much less, the small trace on the circuit board decides to let out a little of the magic smoke.

Good luck!

A common strategy to avoid this is to use a parallel wiring approach or Ferrules which you can see in the really nice FTC Robot Wiring Guide document that FIRST has published on the Team Resources Page.