New Talon Speed Controller

[maddoctor90]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Personally, I believe we'll be told which speed controllers are legal prior to FIRST Choice going live, as that could directly influence how we spend our PDV's.

From the FRCBlog post, the only motor controllers that can be bought with the PDVs are the Jaguar or Victor (not sure which one) from IFI. The AndyMark PDV excludes items that AndyMark carries from other suppliers (Talon - Cross The Road Electronics).

Because of this, it is a real possibility that FIRST won't officially tell us if the Talon or Victor 888 (if the 884 is the only one offered with the IFI voucher) will be legal till kickoff. I would really like FIRST to come out and clear up some of this confusion though as soon as possible. If IFI is selling the Victor 888 on December 5th at $50 for FIRST Teams then I think we are all going to assume that they are legal. I don't think it is fair for the Talon by Cross the Road Electronics if we don't know it's legality by then. I would doubt many teams will plan on using the Talon when they already assume the $50 Victor 888 will be legal.

The Talon does offer some advantages over the Victor 888. It does have a lower R_DSN or "on resistance" then the Victor 888 and this would equate to power savings and allow more power delivered to the motor when near stall or highly loaded. Ether's tests support this showing the spike current to be near 130 amps for the Talon and only 120 amps for the Victor 888. It also has a few handy features already mentioned. Whether these differences will be worth and extra $50 per controller and the wait to know if they are legal is going to be decision teams will have to evaluate for themselves.