blog; Motor Controller Options for 2015

[philso]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

I'm more worried about the PWM cables being attached. We've had far more PWM wires go bad over the years than 12AWG wire. It's going to be a little more annoying to troubleshoot since you can't just swap the PWM wires around at the speed controller. However I am glad that they all come with wires and I would hope they are nice high quality cable and connectors.

One of my concerns is that the PWM/CAN wires enters the enclosure within a mm or two of one of the input power wires in both the Talon SRX and the Victor SP. It will likely lead a lot of people to route the PWM/CAN wires adjacent to the input power wires for some distance. This arrangement makes it much more likely that the PWM/CAN wires pick up the noise from the switching action of the output transistors. It is likely that they have been able to use a smaller enclosure by using newer MOSFETs that have lower on-resistance (for lower conduction losses) and/or shorter rise and fall times (for lower switching losses). Shorter rise and fall times are likely to cause stronger inductive coupling of the switching noise into signal wires running in parallel with the power wires.

The integrated PWM wires will probably mean that more teams will have to purchase the pins and crimpers to replace/repair the connectors when they inevitably wear out or get damaged.

I am hoping that the power wires are truly a "high strand count" type (28 or 30 AWG strands instead of 25 AWG strands) with the soft silicone insulation. It would make it so much easier to do a neat job of running the power wires (VEXPro, are you listening?)