All our motors are weak (low voltage)

[Kevin Thorp]

We have quite a few motors on our robot and they all have the same problem. We noticed they seemed weak, so we put a multimeter on them. They're cycling 5-7-9 volts, never getting to the full 12. However if we bypass the Jags & Victors the motors run much stronger and we measure 12 volts.

What could cause this issue in Labview?

[Alan Anderson]

Opening a motor as a Victor but using a Jaguar will give less than full-scale output, so it could possibly be a programming issue.

I'd be looking at the wiring, though. It sounds like something close to the battery is dropping a lot of voltage.

[Kevin Sevcik]

All the motors, though? That's some epicly bad wiring, if so. Sometime you can get effects like this if your code sends different values to a jaguar during a single loop cycle. If you're accidentally zeroing out the motor command as well as setting it to full on, you can get a weird effect similar to this.

[Kevin Thorp]

Our electrical mentor used to do wiring on the Space Shuttle, so I think he's made sure the kids did a good job wiring our robot.

We're not as confident in our programming skills though. We'll try to find out if we're cycling our motor voltages.

Thanks!

[Kevin Sevcik]

Feel free to post the relevant file(s) and someone will take a look at them.

[372 lives on]

have you calibrated your motor controllers; from my experience the factory calibration will allow a much lower voltage then the maximum.

[Kevin Thorp]

I'm not sure what our programming team did, but it seems to be working well now. Thanks again!

[Ether]

I'm not sure what our programming team did, but it seems to be working well now.

Since you're a mentor, you might want to find out. That kind of knowledge can be useful going forward.