Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris is me
So... we saw smoke when we made our bare bones minibot try to climb, with a modest overgear (0.5:1). These things can't be stalled for even a half second, apparently? I have no idea what smoked or whether or not the motors still worked, but if the motors are that delicate...
|
We smoked a motor hitting the top of the pole and not shutting off...probably a maximum of about 3 seconds of full voltage on a jammed motor.
This happened on the very first occurrence.
My suggestion is make sure you put in the motor cutoffs at the end of the race or make sure your wheel contacts are slippery enough to keep that motor turning.
I'm glad we ordered two extra motors. I expect many teams will fry motors before getting a working minibot.
---
BTW, our prototype uses solder on the motor contacts and uses standard tab and receptacle electrical connectors- not wire nuts.
If they didn't want us to use solder, then it would have been nice for them to supply Tetrix "DC Motor power cables".
http://www.legoeducation.us/store/detail.aspx?ID=1629