The Best Encoders for Drivetrain

[marshall]

We use a total of 8 encoders on our drivetrain this year. We've got a mix of the CUI quadrature and the US Digital analog encoders. It's a pretty solid setup. We use the Helical (I think that's the brand name) shaft couplers on the US Digitals to couple them to the outputs of some versa planetary gearboxes. The outputs on the versa planetary gearboxes are not always perfectly straight from our observations so the couplers help a lot with the alignment issues. I suspect the surgical tubing will also help with alignment issues. It's clever. Surgical tubing is definitely more cost effective than the couplers.

We also had to switch out the set screws on the couplers to something with a cone tip and higher grip.

This has been our first year with the CUI encoders and we're pretty happy with them but the grounding issue is a serious problem for FRC teams. We had to get creative with some nylon 4-40 bolts to get everything nice and isolated but it worked. It's just something to be mindful of when mounting them.

EDIT: Also worth mentioning is Pololu's pre-terminated .1" cables. They are awesome and saved us a ton of fiddly crimping this year for wiring all of our encoders.