Quote:
Originally Posted by Oblarg
Thanks for all the advice. We've decided the safest/best option is to switch our gearing to 7.44:1 (or possibly 8:1 - any thoughts on which of these two would be better?) - we'll lose some top speed over where we were at DC, but gain a bit of pushing power and not compromise our ability to play offense. The only other solution that doesn't compromise drive performance would be to take off our roller arm and stop using the compressor, to put us back in the situation we were in at Greater DC, and we don't think that is acceptable. After all, we were only in that situation at Greater DC due to massive failure of multiple parts on the arm; it's ironic that the hardware failures, in hindsight, ultimately helped us, but we do not wish to intentionally remove most of the robot that our students spent so much effort building.
In the future, we will likely pursue 2-speed 6CIM drives; I am sold on the 6CIM drive after our performance at DC this year (we were a major contributor on the winning alliance due to our drive power and little else), but I had not realized how much strain it puts on the FRC batteries.
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The compressor draws a hellacious amount of current, especially when it starts. Would it be possible for you to replace the compressor with additional stored air? Another option, and this would be a fair amount of programming, would be to selectively run the compressor when the total draw isn't all that high.
Other than that I agree that gearing things down would help significantly. At least for this year speed is less important than control and power (IMO).