[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Also reduce it to the maximum currents allowed on an FRC robot (it has to sit behind a 20, 30 or 40A breaker, remember!), and you're down to 480W.

I find it impossible to believe that this motor operates at 100% efficiency. There's no power loss at all due to friction in the bearings, or in generated heat in the motor?

The motors we deal with in FRC have been tested to death by teams, and the posted numbers are typically peer reviewed and confirmed to represent the output power available from the motor. The math we've done here can easily be applied to any of our motors to find the input power available to the motor, with identical results.

The key here is to look at the efficiency of the motor - that's where you'll be able to see actual gains in output power to your mechanisms. A supplier like BaneBots provides their motor efficiency right on the website. I ran a quick search, and I can't find any posted efficiency numbers for either of the motors you mentioned.

Granted, brushless motors are typically more efficient than brushed, but unless we know exactly how much more efficient, we can't really do a comparison. Is going from 70% efficiency to 80% efficiency (for example) worth ditching our current suppliers and sponsors? Is it worth ditching the known performance and longevity of our motors for new motors we have no experience with? Remember the debacle with the RS-775 case short a couple of years ago? I wouldn't want to see us make a drastic switch in our motors only to encounter something like that again... or worse!

I get what you're saying, but we can't be afraid to try new things just because they are new and untested in a FRC robot.

We have all been bitten by that bug in the past but we can't be afraid to move on. Who can't forget the debacle of the BaneBot gearboxes in 2007? Those were fun times.