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Posted by Joe Johnson.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]


Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.

Posted on 7/3/2000 1:55 PM MST


In Reply to: Re: The drills are not FP or Delphi Power Sliding Door Motors... posted by Matt Leese on 7/1/2000 6:53 PM MST:



Let me begin by saying that I didn't mean to be elitist by the 'good' teams comment so much as I wanted to convey that it is not a problem with yahoo teams with no engineering help and no experience.
Believe me, there were a number of very well thought of teams with a number or regionals champ banners hanging in their gyms that ran into problems with the 60 amp fuse. That said, I also I know of a number of rookie teams that had difficulties as well.

As to your assessment that the drill motors are somehow of higher quality and that this higher quality allowing them to draw less current, this is just nonsense. The drill motors are motors just like any other in the kit. They follow the same laws concerning speed, torque & current that the other motors in the kit follow. As to quality, I would argue that other motors have higher quality based on my observations of % failures on FIRST robots.

To my mind, the drill motors have two significant differences from all the other motors in the kit that make the special:

#1 They are, by far, the most powerful motors in the kit (and, not coincidentally, they draw by far, the most current of any motor in the kit)

#2 They are the most difficult motor to mechanically interface to (specifically, the output shaft is difficult to reliably connect to & the overall shape of the housings makes the drills the most difficult motor to hold reliably).

After saying all this, I would actually welcome more of these motors in the kit. However, I am quite sure that without some help or a rules change, a lot of teams (veteran & rookie alike) will have 60 amp fuse problems.

Just my two cents.

Joe J.