Rain overflow in tools

Hey,

I have a question about the tools. If the water / air valves are not in use on a tool, and it is stored on a mount, and it is raining, I assume the valve ports on the tools will fill up with water. This is no issue if the tool is not used but if the umt tries to mount it i assume the water what is in the valve ports will overflow. This will cause a short circuit on some of the electronic ports when connected to the umt. Is this correct? If so i think it is better to create an hole from the not used valves to the sides so that the water can flow out.

Sorry for my english.

I think in most cases the electronics (or whatever) are in the arm and they only connect the the uniquely set up tool ends. For example the air compressor would not be in the tool end just a tube to pass the air through, about the same for the water.

I am using a tool with an +5V and a GND. Those two are right next to each other. In the case of rain overflow you could get a short circuit between the +5V and the GND.

This is a good point @rickiewars and something that we’ve been thinking about. One solution we started brainstorming was to elevate the electronic screws off of the face of the tool with rubber washers. This would help separate them from water on the tool surface but may not be enough. Keeping water out of the empty ports by having them be through-holes would also help.

What my solution is for now is to have holes inside the valve ports to the sides as shown in my attachments. This may be an solution if the valve ports aren’t used and you need to have it dry at the bottem of your tool.

You could have a spring loaded cap that flips aside as the arm comes down and hits the actuator. Like this;

if it had an actuator arm in the center rear where the spring is, it would push on it cause the cap to flip aside right as the arm is coming in for a connection.

If you combine that with the purposed safety splash shield for the hot water weed killing tool then it would act like an umbrella to keep any current rain off of it as well.

There should also probably be a rubber gasket around all tools to keep water away from any part you don’t want it to touch while a tool head is attached to the arm.

I think your solution is the higher level of design but not completely dry is I understand it right (No offense) its made to let the design work while a little wet right? If you allow it to stay a little wet you may have issues when it gets down to sub freezing temps. I say may have b/c I really don’t know.

You could just invert it and have the male part on the tools and the female on the UTM.