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Originally Posted by Joe Hershberger
So guys, hows it going with this? Anyone have any updates?
-Joe
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Not as well as we would like, and now it's getting towards crunch time. The key difficulty we are facing is a variable torque load, which can be measured with the USB DAQ. Sure, a spring scale and friction belt works, but taking measurements by hand is a drag, not to mention inaccurate.
Our current incarnation has a CIM from last year, controlled by a Victor, to counter-rotate against the motor under test (actively driven against the MUT as opposed to useing it like a generator against a fixed or variable resistor). Problem is, the victor is non-linear and even at the lowest setting sometimes is a bit too much for the MUT. So, we're going to try either a fixed resistor to tone down the CIM for the smaller motors, or use one of the smaller motors (or a Non-FIRST motor?) to test, uh, the smaller motors.
Much of the testing we're doing on the 'final' hardware is also taking away from the Integration & Test team's availability for motor testing. The kids are surprised what they are learning from seeing data instead of 'gee, that looks about right..."
Don