Motor controllers?

[danebouchie]

Hey, new team here. We were wondering if it is really necessary to get a motor controller for every single motor controller that we use. We have 4 separate CIM motors for moving (victor 888's) 2 CIM motors for throwing the ball (2 jaguars), the gear box for a pickup mechanism, 1-2 motors that move the pickup mechanism, and 2 window motors for an angling mechanism. So do we really need this many motor controllers? are there cheaper motor controllers besides the victors and jaguars? Can we hook up two motors to one controller for the mini-CIMs? window motors? 2 CIM motors (ball shooting)?

[dellagd]

You can find all of the information on using multiple motors on one controller in... sigh... the manual.

Its in R51. From there you should be able to answer all your questions on multiple motors.
FYI, Mini-CIM part number is 217-3371

As for common ways that are cheaper than a Victor or Jag, if you only need full forward/reverse, a relay (i.e. Spike) can be used to control the motor in place of a full variable controller.

[Joe Ross]

R51 lists which motors can be combined on a speed controller. If you don't need speed control, you can also run some motors on a spike relay (as defined by R51).

Talons are a third legal choice for a speed controller, but are the same price as the Victor.

[danebouchie]

thanks, I missed that part in the manual.

[homerun33ss]

thanks, I missed that part in the manual.

We missed that too, and now it is coming back to bite us in the behind; throwing a very large wrench into a part of our design...

[nathannfm]

As you are looking for inexpensive options you probably won't even do this, but I thought I would mention this thread about avoiding using jags on window motors.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106308