Hi @eric84200,
The following comment covers the reasoning behind our battery wire gauge, and the logic is similar for the terminal blocks:
In short,
- current ratings are general guidelines, which provide some guarantee of safety in the absence of performance testing for the intended use-case
- ROVs don’t tend to be used with several/all thrusters at full throttle for extended periods, so the average current is generally much lower than the maximum, and when maximums do occur they tend to be as brief spikes (which aren’t for long enough to contribute excessive heat energy)
- for various reasons, once a thruster starts moving it doesn’t draw as much current as it does when it’s first accelerating in stationary water
If your use-case isn’t a BlueROV2, and requires full throttle of several thrusters for an extended period then we can’t recommend the terminal blocks we use without testing on your part to determine suitability. The same could be said of any other component - if you’re not using it the way we’ve tested it then we can’t provide guarantees that it’s the right component for your use-case. The best we can say is something along the lines of
It works for us, in our products, so if you’re doing something similar then it will probably work for you, but that’s not a substitute for performing your own testing, and we can’t make guarantees about using our internal components outside of our tested designs.
It’s perhaps worth noting the distinction there between internal vs external components:
- internal components like the terminal blocks are something that we use (e.g. on our electronics tray), but we don’t sell them as an individual and freestanding product (with explicit ratings and whatnot for general use), and they’re not actually our product (i.e. they can be purchased directly from the manufacturer/suppliers, and have their own datasheets and specifications with no link to Blue Robotics)
- contrast that to something like the T200, which is a product that we design and sell, and we very much intend for others to be able to purchase, understand the performance and specifications of, and integrate into their own designs
