Quote:
Originally Posted by JesseK
In many regional finals, you have a 6-minute match cycle time. If you have a high-current match, then your battery may not have enough time to fully recharge before the next time it is used. In the worst case, it could take 6 matches to make it to finals -- most teams (though I'm sure not all) I've seen at competition have between 4 & 6 batteries. The question then becomes, can your battery chargers properly keep up with your demand?
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Also remember that as your motors transform electrical power into mechanical power, they are generating heat due to inefficiency. The more inefficient your motors (e.g. the further in the power curve from the "max efficiency" point you are), the more heat they generate. What is truly insidious is that a hot motor is less efficient than a cool one - resistivity in metals increases with temperature. So the hot motors get hotter more quickly. In FRC terms, red hot motors will produce less mechanical power before tripping their breakers (or burning themselves out for good).