Thread: CHIPS
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Unread 21-05-2004, 11:03
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Re: CHIPS

I agree with most of what has been said in this thread, but there is one major difference between the Chips and drills that I have not seen mentioned thus far.

The Drills are air cooled motors, cooled by a fan in the back of the motor near the brushes. Since it is air cooled, it will continue to give full power when it heats up, and after it stalls, untill it burns up.

The Chips, on the other hand, are not air cooled. They have a variable resistor (a brass colored plate) in the motor so that as the motor heats up, the resistance increases in the plate, giving the motor less current so that it wont burn itself up. Basicly, as motor heats up, its power output decreases. While this helps greatly with durability of the motor, it hurts in an application such as what we are using them for. If you get in a pushing match and you stall your motors for a 2nd or two, the Chips will heat up, and put out less power for the rest of the match. Do this a a couple times, and you will definately notice the power loss. On our 2003 robot, we had 4 motor drive, with the chips powering the rear wheels and the drills in the front. Due to our weight distribution, our rear wheels had the most traction, so the Chips were mostly responsible for turning. Many times when we got to the end of a match, the robot would have difficulty turining because the chips got hot and therefore their power output was cut accordingly.

Just another thing to think about. Oh yeah...did I mention that those suckers are HEAVY.