pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

For more information please visit http://www.revrobotics.com/product/spark/

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Two months ago we released a video message stating our company mission, to provide quality parts and components at prices that are affordable for teams. Today we are proud to launch another new product which we think teams will really like. The Spark motor controller is the result of more than 10 months of engineering with a focus on bullet proof performance and the lowest price ever available to teams. The Spark will be available to order and ship within the next few weeks for a price of $45 from both Amazon (Prime) and REVrobotics.com

In addition to the price, we have put a strong emphasis on usability for teams. In addition to the features teams have come to expect from their motor controllers, we added extras, like limit switch inputs that help make building smarter mechanisms easy. We also enhanced some of the features teams like with a few simple modifications, like making the LED full color for better team feedback and providing a better method for cable retention of the included PWM cable.

As with all of our products moving forward, we are going to be releasing the full documentation of the product including our CAD, board schematics, and development process so that people can learn from both using the product and the actual product itself. We plan to have all documentation released by the end of 2015, so that teams have all of the information that they need for the FRC build season.

We are very excited to bring the SPARK to the community and hope that our ability to deliver this product at a great value will directly help many teams. We also hope that new competition in the market causes other suppliers of similar components to adjust their pricing to stay competitive. It is our belief that lower priced components are good for everyone and something that we will continue to strive for.


We appreciate your support of REV Robotics and our products. We will continue to try to make the experience of building robots better for everyone.

Thanks,

Greg Needel
REV Robotics CEO and Co-Founder

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Price?

EDIT: Sorry, didn't refresh!

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

$45

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Oh my... $45 for a motor controller of (presumably) the same caliber for Talon SRXs and Victors? Niiice. Is the limit switch wired directly to the controller and is there CAN support?

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

It's closer to a Talon SR / Victor SP. No CAN support, PWM only.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

With rookies getting up to 5 free SRs and having the option for a $45 motor controller, that's going to put a lot of new teams at ease. Awesome.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

This looks pretty cool Greg. Also the color scheme blends with out robots a little better as well.

The top flat surface seems like it will be very easy to put a label on which can be a bit tricky with the fins on some of the other controllers like the talon SRs.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

There are 2 limit switch inputs right on the controller that can support normally open or normally closed switches. Each one acts as an end stop, making it really easy to implement movement limits on any mechanism with no code or setup required.

we choose not to add CAN support at this time, because we were focused on providing a low cost and easy to use controller for everyone. We love the capabilities of CAN and the things that the Talon SRX can do, but if you don't need those extra features the cost savings can go a long way for many teams.


There will also be some SPARK motor controllers in FIRST Choice.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

The most important metric, of course, is the number of LED colors per dollar:

REV SPARK: 0.156
Talon SR: 0.046
Victor 888: 0.043
Talon SRX: 0.050
Victor SP: 0.033
Jaguar: 0.038

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

After seeing what REV robotics has been doing with there products and mission. I have only one thing to say.

This is AWESOME!!

The price of motor controllers has been through the roof. The extra $25 savings will be a life saver. Plus that limit switch bonus will make life easier for teams that have trouble with programing. Just hoping that you will have the stock to meet the demands.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

The Spark has more LED status light colors than the SP and SRX combined. Truly we are in a golden age.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

HA. I remember when Victors where $100, and that was for years. $60 for the Victor SPs were a much better deal then what teams payed for years.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

What? :confused: We recently got a 40% discount off of speed controllers. The Victors and Talons are downright cheap compared to before.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

My apologies. To be honest I have only been looking at motor controller prices since 2014 so I had little frame of reference for what prices used to be.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

By the way, $60-$25 =! $45

Excited for more options, but will go with the more compact solution for the time being.

-Mike

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

+1 to this. Robot real estate is premium.

Though having ran a team in college whose robot budget was generally sub $1000, have a quality cheap option is awesome for the community as a whole.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Congrats Greg! This is a big step for Rev!

Do you have any data on the linearity?

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Reading these comments really shows how far we have come. There used to be a time when the only choice available was Tekin Speed Controllers and they liked to catch on fire...

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Since it's a 15(.625) kHz controller, I'd be very surprised if it's not as linear as the other 15 kHz controllers.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Even among the existing 15kHz controllers there is a quite a bit of variation on the linearity of the output though.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

You know there's only a few of us left on here that would have any clue what you're talking about. ;) It's actually even before my time. Oh how far we have come.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Mike, thanks for the feedback. We know that this is not the speed controller for everyone. Many people will still opt to pay a bit more for both a space savings and/or CAN controls. That is totally cool with us, as every team needs to make their own weighted decisions.

When we built this we were really focused on the bottom up; building a controller that the rookies and struggling teams could use and afford, while still providing the performance that top teams require. From a business standpoint, we would love to have these riding on every machine in FIRST we know that there are several other very good options out there for teams. :)



The output of the SPARK is linear, comparable with the other modern controllers on the market. We have the testing data, and will be releasing it in the near future (along with some other testing documentation).

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

This is also great news for those of us who control motors with arduinos and other non-FRC control systems which support PWM but not CAN. I had feared that the PWM was going to go away in favor of an all-CAN infrastructure. The introduction of a new PWM controller seems to push that at least a few years down the road.

The low cost with built-in limit switch support is great - it should be sufficient for many applications!

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

And that team in college hasn't really changed in terms of robot budget. It was really nice getting like 5 or 7 Victor 888s this year from FIRST Choice.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Those were by far the worst. On that note great work by REV and can not wait for more products.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Do you have any data on this?

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

It is nice to have another option, especially at a lower price.

Is the "Brake/Coast Mode" next to the positive power input terminal an LED or one of those tiny rotary switches?

Is the enclosure fully isolated or is there a metal pad on the back that is at some voltage potential?

Does the PWM input connect directly to an optocoupler LED or does it have a current limiting resistor in series with the LED? We have had trouble connecting several motor controllers of different types to the same PWM signal because the optocoupler LED's had different forward voltages and only the controller with the lowest VF would actually run.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

BTW, $60 - $25 = $35...

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

It is a button that is accessible through a small hole. A bent paperclip works well.

The enclosure and heat sink are fully isolated.

There is a resistor in series with the optocoupler LED.

Thanks for your questions!

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Although apparently rusty on my excel operators... :rolleyes:

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Just say you were trained by Yoda.

"Sixty dollars minus twenty-five dollars equals not forty five dollars."

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

When selecting speed controller by number of colors, the choice is clear.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Clearly Vex must answer the talonCube.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

There was a doc that was out a while back that I can't seem to find at the moment that showed it pretty well, but even the link that Conor posted above showed the variation between at least 2 15kHz motor controllers (original talon, and jaguar). If I find the document I'm thinking of that included the newer motor controllers as well I'll post it.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

This is pretty funny. We don't think many people will chose their motor controller on LED color, but we did it for very practical reasons.

If you have ever tried to quick glance to see the status of something on your controller you will know that trying to decipher single color blink patterns isn't always easy. By adding an RGB leg we have 7 colors (we are not doing mixing at this time) and it just makes things easier. Want to know if you are in brake vs coast? What color is your neural position led (blue =brake, Yellow = coast). We will be releasing a full chart of the colors and blink patterns and hope that it will help some teams will like the added feedback....and all the pretty colors :D

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

That's a pretty cool feature.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

As long as we still have red. I appreciate the comedic relief of having to explain multiple times each season that "No, blinking red doesn't mean it's about to explode or that anything is wrong."

On a more serious note, as someone who likes to use lights on motor controllers to help troubleshoot problems on robots I look forward to having some additional information at my disposal when I peak into a robot with the SPARK. Hopefully it can be put to good use!

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Are your motor controllers section 508 compliant? As a former U.S. Government purchasing agent, I'm doubting now if I could have bought any of these motor controllers for Uncle Sam. Oh! blinking lights! Red and green mean different things, with no other distinctions! Fortunately, (as far as I know), we only have one color-blind person on our team this year (red-green), and he's not working controls.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Can REV provide an estimated release date for the Spark?

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Any day now..... We have loads of them in stock processing through Amazon's warehouses. As soon as they reach all the fulfillment centers they will be available. Amazon has to load their warehouses all around the country with stock so that you can get them via amazon same day and next day with prime.

Here is where they will be available from. http://www.amazon.com/REV-Robotics-S...dp/B0187YCAFI/


If teams really want to get their hands on them soon, you can contact us directly via email and we can sell them directly. (note: this is not what we really want to do, but are willing to until amazon comes online.) contact [at] revrobotics [dot] com

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Using Amazon is brilliant for teams.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

I've been selling products on Amazon myself for about a year and a half now, growing into a solid part-time job (which pairs nicely with my other part-time job, customer support for a software company used by Amazon sellers). The more I learn about their fulfillment system--the one that's in service now, forget the drones--the more I'm astounded by its scale. It's a tremendous boon to small operations like REV or my business, as I know it would be way more expensive for me to have my own warehouse space and staff picking/packing/shipping for me.

One protip for the masses: Once you see the Spark go from "unavailable" like it is now to back-ordered, that means there is inventory checked into Amazon's fulfillment system and it's safe to order. When big quantities (I've found 20 is "big quantities") of an item get sent to Amazon, Amazon will usually tell a seller to ship it all to one facility* and then they'll split it all out to other warehouses across the country over a few days. Your order would then get picked and packed as soon as one hit the right destination warehouse.

*Greg, if those Sparks are getting shipped to CVG3: My sympathies.

Re: pic: SPARK Motor Controller from REV Robotics
 

Thanks Greg, I see they're up now. Get your Sparks!