How about new motors?

[dlavery]

After a few years of pushing the Bosch drill motors right to the limits of their performance during the competitions (even when taking full advantage of Dr. Joe's wonderful drill mods ), I keep wondering if we will have them in the kits again next year as the probable "prime movers." Is there any significant interest in pushing for a more capable set of motors?

I am getting one of the motors that many of the BattleBots teams are starting to use, which looks very impressive if the write-ups are anywhere near accurate (see http://www.robotbooks.com/robot-motors.htm for info). I am interested enough that I paid for one of these puppys out of my pocket (don't tell my wife!), and want to play with it this summer.

They are expensive, but if we had something like this in the kits, it could make for an entirely different game (I have visions of last year's machines being able to get serious air time off the bridge if we had similar motors ). Machine speed and Robo-Sumo capabilites could become major aspects of the game.

-dave

[Manoel]

I think it's a very good idea to change from the drill motors to something else. It doesn't have to be much more powerful, only more efficient. The drills heat up, are noisy, and has caused lots of problems to many many teams, including us (fortunately, not during the real thing... )
But I'm not sure if that Magmotor is the best choice, for the following reasons:
- It's a 24 Volt motor
- It weights a lot, using two of these and the Exide battery, you'd be using almost 30% of the maximum weight allowed
- It's kinda expensive, at U$ 345... I don't know in the USA, but here in Brazil we can buy the drill with the gearbox for about U$ 40...
Other than that, it's a very impressive motor, just not for FIRST competition, I believe. If someone comes up with something as powerful, but lighter and cheaper, I'm all for it...


'

[Clark Gilbert]

I think we should keep the drill motors for a while....This year a few of our engineers dreamed up an awesome Dual Motor Assembly that was great this year and i hope we can keep using the drill motors and make it better for the future...


Prints and Descriptions can be found in theWhite Papers


Dual Motor Gear Switching Assy (doc - 545kb)
Dual Motor Gear Switching Assy (pdf - 647kb)

and

Gear Switching and Motor Mount Design
Andrew Baker (Technokats)
Microsoft Word is needed to view this file.

[Manoel]

I was going to say that, but forgot... Now a post from a Technokat reminded me: The Magmotor's shaft extends to the back of the motor much more than the drill's, you might take advantage of that...

'

[David Kelly]

don't fix something that ain't broke!!!



Thats all i got to say about that

[Clark Gilbert]

There wasnt anything wrong w/ that itty bitty shaft sticking out the back of the drill motor.....we got it to work just fine.....

[Andrew Rudolph]

i like this motor just fine and i think it would be a good adition. Id rather have one of these than the torque motor.

NPC motors

[Matt Leese]

Originally posted by dlavery
After a few years of pushing the Bosch drill motors right to the limits of their performance during the competitions (even when taking full advantage of Dr. Joe's wonderful drill mods ), I keep wondering if we will have them in the kits again next year as the probable "prime movers." Is there any significant interest in pushing for a more capable set of motors?

I am getting one of the motors that many of the BattleBots teams are starting to use, which looks very impressive if the write-ups are anywhere near accurate (see http://www.robotbooks.com/robot-motors.htm for info). I am interested enough that I paid for one of these puppys out of my pocket (don't tell my wife!), and want to play with it this summer.

They are expensive, but if we had something like this in the kits, it could make for an entirely different game (I have visions of last year's machines being able to get serious air time off the bridge if we had similar motors ). Machine speed and Robo-Sumo capabilites could become major aspects of the game.

-dave

I'd have to say stick with what we have. The main reason for that is because there is a certain challenge to making a drill motor drive a robot. It's part of the competition to be challenging. The drill motors aren't designed to drive a robot and it's something that has to be engineered around. Plus I want to think the drill motors are donated....

Matt

[Kyle Fenton]

I don't know if you remember but on Junkyard Wars, the episode where they had to build submarines. The geeks side, I think used a 12 volt motor to power their little submarine. The thing looked powerful. I think it was one from a washermachine or something.

[Andrew Rudolph]

All right so everyone seems to be iffy on the drill motors, but what about that torque motor? Who used it? What for? and who still wants it in the kit? Or would somthing else be better?

Andrew

[Kyle Fenton]

The torque motor was a nifty idea but we didn't use it because it didn't go around enough to use on our robot. The range of motion on that motor was less then 180

Another thing was the light sensor. Remember the ballot thingie at Kick-Off. I mean nothing was color sensitive or small enough to make any sense for it to use.

[GregT]

My ONLY complaint about the drill engines is that they heat up and make funny smells. When they make funny smells the big people tell us to turn the robot off.

They overheat, bad. I have no problem working around their power/speed issues, infact i think its a great power/speed. Teams with light robots can move much faster then teams with huge ones (using just the gearbox that came with the drill).

Maybe switch to a better drill ?)

Oh well... next year i'm personally water - cooling the suckers.

[Clark Gilbert]

(shameless plug)

Give Team 45's Motor Mount Assemblies a try!


(they work great, i know a few teams have used it)

[David Kelly]

Originally posted by Clark Gilbert
(shameless plug)

Give Team 45's Motor Mount Assemblies a try!


(they work great, i know a few teams have used it)

actually we kinda gave up on designing our oun drive motor system and went with the kokomo design. it worked flawlessly. other than a little problem with friction in the beginning, we never had a problem with it. We didn't have any overheating or gearbox problems with it. we are excited to try out the drill motor design from the 2001 TechnoKart on our robot next year.

If you have problems with your drive system, i would HIGHLY reccomend looking into the the TechnoKats design.

[Carolyn Duncan]

Originally posted by Matt Leese

I'd have to say stick with what we have. The main reason for that is because there is a certain challenge to making a drill motor drive a robot. It's part of the competition to be challenging. The drill motors aren't designed to drive a robot and it's something that has to be engineered around. Plus I want to think the drill motors are donated....

Matt

I think Leese has a point here. How great is it to think "wow I'm moving this robot around using drill motors." What about when you're doing a demo andsomeone asks about the drive train. When you tell them it's drill motors you feel great because you used something other than for its intended purpose. I like the drill motors, they're a good thing.