Quote:
Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery
With the vast array and unrestricted quantities of high power motors now available in FRC, I'm struggling to imagine cases where PTOs are still the best option. Back when there were far fewer high powered motors and their quantities were limited, it made sense for your drivetrain CIMs to pull double duty. In 2016, teams had access to up to 6 CIMs and there were no rules restrictions placed on the quantity of 775 Pros or MiniCIMs used, so needing to hunt for that additional mechanism power from your drivetrain seems far less rewarding.
|
Good point. Once you take into account the PTO, pancake cylinder and power transmission method to the thing you want to rotate you can probably have a custom gearbox or VP with a 775pro or two for the same weight.
Main advantage of the PTO would be if you identified that you needed to do a task extremely quickly( if you had a 6CIM drivetrain having another 6 775pros( also at this point a PTO is lighter) for a climber/blah/endgame etc.. would probably end up being a little taxing on PDP slots available. But if you plan well you can get superior packaging, especially if you don't have the capability to manufacture custom gearboxes( for smaller motors like 775's).
As Anand said, if you plan your robot well you can have the PTO take up very little space.