Calculating Linear Force from Motor Torque?

[BBray_T1296]

Designing your systems to operate at peak effectiveness* is not absolutely needed, but it sure makes the most of what you've got.

For example: for our gathering system in 2012, the conveyer to lift the balls only needed to hoist 3 balls at a time max, and we used a AndyMark motor in its gearbox, massively overpowered for what we needed. We had it geared (post gearbox) 1:1, and it worked just snazzy. If we had done the math, we would have realized it could have lifted the balls 25x faster with ease


*not necessarily efficiency - remember: your robot only has to last 2.25 minutes, pull every last amp/hr you can as long as they are doing something. Why not?