To Martin, It's nice to see things go bang now and again, as long as it isn't your own! (Or a precious Delorean!) At least your mate gets to nick the good bits off powerful kits. I just plug my laptop into the appropriate network or communications moduleand be very careful what I type for field addressing and ladder logic. Did you win any rounds in Robot Wars? I haven't watched it for a couple of years. My favourite is scrapheap challenge. Maybe the club could have a rebuild a Delorean challenge?? Maybe not..... Nick. Martin Gutkowski <webmaster@xxxx> wrote: One thing we learnt ages ago is that the control stage is relatively easy *in theory*, it's the power stage that's a headache especially when something goes wrong (as you say) and you pop 4 fet packs worth £40 each! Our friend Si Harrison (King B) is now using 400A IGBT half-bridge packs the size of a playing card- elegant but extremely expensive. Si is the real genius behind our controllers. He works for a company supplying and maintaining UPS systems and gets to rob secondhand silicon from old systems being taken off line. Draven has two 1200W S2 motors running at 24v - at stall (which in RW happens all too often), they'll draw 250A. We've accidentally shorted the supply cables (120A nom copper braid) and it popped like a fuse in less than a second. Nasty. BTW forgot to mention, our controllers weigh about 400g each - in RW, it's all about weight too! Martin --------------------------------- Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping" your friends today! Download Messenger Now [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]