[ChrisH]

In 2007 the BeachBots used stalled FP's to hold our ramps closed. We did this by using substantially less than full power and gearboxes to lower the shaft speed. We had a 4:1 reduction after a BaneBots planetary gearbox, I forget if it was 16:1, 32:1 or 64:1. I think we used something like 25% power for retention, more if we actually wanted things to move.

Before we settled on this solution we did a fair amount of testing to verify that doing so would not cause problems. The motors did get slightly warm to the touch during a match, but they were not close to hot. IIRC we used the same set of motors all season.

In this situation all we had to do was prevent movement from starting, in the stowed position the ramps wanted to stay put unless there was some outside event, like a hard hit from the side.

So you can successfully stall an FP without burning it up, but you need to be pretty careful how you do it.