Alternative motors for drive train

[Joe G.]

Some teams have used motors to supplement CIMs, including the Fisher Price motor, AM-9014, RS-550 and 775, BAG, and Mini-CIM, often to great success. I've never heard of a drive with no CIMs having anything but problems. Not only is the CIM the most powerful motor in the kit, it is also the best at handling the stall conditions and tremendous amounts of heat buildup inherit to drive train applications.

[EricH]

Actually, yes.

Unfortunately, I've been around a while. So this one isn't going to be legal anytime soon...

Two Bosch drill motors, running through somewhat modified Bosch drill transmissions, one on each side of the robot. (Note: While we rarely had an issue, many teams did have issues.) 4WD, all powered. Hasn't been legal since 2004, due to the drill motors being replaced by a pair of CIMs in the 2005 and later allowed motor lists; CIMs had been included for at least a few years before then along with the drill motors.

You could also ask Billfred about driving using window motors.

[Grim Tuesday]

I know that 1218 last year used a hybrid RS775/CIM drivetrain so they could use their CIM elsewhere. It definitely degraded their pushing power and gave them a little trouble on the bridge.

[Anupam Goli]

3824 at Palmetto was powering a meccanum drive off 4 mini-cims in toughboxes. It was fast, but was on the short end of the stick when it came to defense.

[Ivan Malik]

2009 saw some interesting designs due to the field surface... It would be a good place to look. I cant recall any off the top of my head save for robostang's crab that turned the wheel pods using servos.

[Andrew Schreiber]

2337 attempted to use FP motors in their drive. It didn't end too well as I recall.

[theawesome1730]

In 2007 118 used a "v6" transmission for their swerve drive Video while they did use 4 CIMs, they had two smaller motors supplementing them (I'm not sure what kind).

[MichaelBick]

This year we're running a 4 CIMs and 2 550s on our drive. It gave us quite a bit of pushing power to push around almost all of the teams at the Israel and LA regionals.

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by theawesome1730

In 2007 118 used a "v6" transmission for their swerve drive Video while they did use 4 CIMs, they had two smaller motors supplementing them (I'm not sure what kind).

They were the fisher price motors.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan

They were the fisher price motors.

Yep.

In 2006, 968 ran 2 CIMs and 1 FP in each drive transmission (or was it 1 and 1? I forget.). Anyways, I recall that they got quite a bit of practice in changing FPs out of the trannies due to frying. Something about FPs (and most of the KOP non-CIM motors) not exactly handling stalling very well.

I've used 4x RS775 motors in a drive, but there was almost no pushing involved, and weight was a very definite factor (as in, lower the weight for better points). This was not an FRC robot, BTW.

[Donut]

Originally Posted by Ivan Malik

2009 saw some interesting designs due to the field surface... It would be a good place to look.

This. I know on 498 that year we used 1 Banebots motor and transmission per side for our drive (I think RS550s). Never had any problems but I wouldn't do it for any "normal" FRC game. We also had to be careful to not drive the robot on carpet ever as a result.

[waialua359]

With the recent flexibility in the use, number, and types of motors, I cant see why anyone would use anything other than CIMs in their drivetrains as their main source of power..........other than weight issues.
In 2010, we had a pretty tough drivetrain that allowed us to play striker in all of our tournaments. Oddly enough, we used only a 1 CIM/1 FP (AM planetary gearbox) drive on each side to push robots around. We did it to shave off weight during crunch time of build season.
That year we had I believe a 47 match win (non-loss) streak including the ties.

[BigJ]

As John mentioned, we have mini-cims for our drive this year. I believe this was done primarily for weight issues, as our design is a corner climber-dumper. We are using custom 1-speed gearboxes.

I'm a software guy so to me it's all -1.0 to 1.0, but I'll see if I can get someone who worked on it to talk about ratios and such.

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by Wing

3824 at Palmetto was powering a meccanum drive off 4 mini-cims in toughboxes. It was fast, but was on the short end of the stick when it came to defense.

1675 also used 4 mini-cims for their meccanum drive. I'm not sure their specific set up, but I was actually impressed with their pushing/defense (for a mecanum drive that is )

[Andy A.]

Two 3/8ths drill motors, geared for a blazing 8 feet per second. Then again, 8fps was pretty fast when no one had heard of bumpers yet.

It's really impressive how far FIRST drive trains have come.