[Madison]

We recently hooked up a rough and tumble prototype using these wheels coupled directly to a small CIM motor and also noticed what appears to be a significant current draw by the motor as a result of air drag.

We measured a draw of 27A with the wheels spinning under no load other than air resistance and friction and I figured that to mean there's about 1 lbf applied against the shaft or so. When passing a ball through the shooter, the current jumped a bit to 30A, suggesting an additional load of about .25 lbf. We intend to shield the spokes, of course, and also understand that the prototype rattles a lot and is not as efficient as it could be -- in fact, a quick test of the system before it was statically mounted produced a current draw of 66A!

All of that said, are these data in the same ballpark as anyone else? I've been using these numbers as a benchmark to determine my final gearing using a different motor and am getting expected results far different from what I see most teams implementing. I'm ignoring losses to ball spin at the moment, but it seems like that may account for as much as 45% of the energy put into the balls and that just doesn't seem right to me.

Any guidance?