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Posted by Thomas A. Frank.

Engineer on team #121, The Islanders/Rhode Warrior, from Middletown (RI) High School and Naval Undersea Warfare Center.

Posted on 2/15/2000 1:14 PM MST


In Reply to: Clearifications on our 'bot posted by nuts4first on 2/15/2000 7:04 AM MST:



Hello;

It depends on what your definition of 'hot' is. If you reach in and touch the motors and say 'gee, that's hot, hey Joe, come here and feel this', I would not be overly worried. If you reach in and touch the motor, scream and run to put your fingers into a glass of ice cold soda, you have a problem.

More specifically, if the motors are getting over about 130 deg F then I would be nervous; below that, I would't be too concerned.

From your desciption of the drive (it sounds reasonable), I would be looking for excess friction. Is everything lined up properly? We've had trouble in the past with wood chassis warping and changing driveline geometry.

Also, keep in mind all the nice little fans FIRST provided. One blowing on each motor would be an ideal cooling approach. And if you make the air intakes accessible, you could have an externally powered fan that could provide cooling air to the motors between matches (I disagree with JJ here about the cool in a can approach...thermal shocks worry me a bit...but lots of forced air is a fine way to go).

Also, remember the format of the competition - you'll have 2 minutes of run time, with at least a minute of down time (probably more like 2 or 3). So maybe you should consider running the machine in that manner to allow a little cooling time. Only practice is more demanding.

Tom Frank