FRC Blog - 2016 Motor Controllers

[Jimmy Nichols]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

That's exactly how I feel. I'd much rather know now in a blog post than to read it in the rules.

Agree. When I started things like this didn't exist. There wasn't a blog and information like this wasn't widely distributed.

I just go the weekly email, I do feel that the timing of the blog post to the email could be better coordinated so that the information goes out together. So more teams get the info at the same time.

[Gdeaver]

We use the BB RS540 for our swerve steering. I wonder if all BB motors are going to be illegal at a late date. With all BB motors listed as discontinued and new Planetary gear boxes from BB, they may have a new line for 2016. Time will tell. We have used the BB products for years and have liked the small light weight solution they provide. We design with in spec. The Vex pro planetary maybe nice but heavy and larger foot print.

For those who complain about motor controller prices, look at the other commercial shipping controllers for hobby robotics. These companies are providing high quality devices for a fantastic price. The Talon SRX with it's program ability is an unbelievable bargain compared to the other market options. Sub 50$ controllers is fantastic.

[Jimmy Nichols]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

We use the BB RS540 for our swerve steering. I wonder if all BB motors are going to be illegal at a late date. With all BB motors listed as discontinued and new Planetary gear boxes from BB, they may have a new line for 2016. Time will tell. We have used the BB products for years and have liked the small light weight solution they provide. We design with in spec. The Vex pro planetary maybe nice but heavy and larger foot print.

For those who complain about motor controller prices, look at the other commercial shipping controllers for hobby robotics. These companies are providing high quality devices for a fantastic price. The Talon SRX with it's program ability is an unbelievable bargain compared to the other market options. Sub 50$ controllers is fantastic.

Our kids are designing a swerve and was getting ready to purchase the parts which included BB parts. I'm thinking Saturday will be looking at redesign or other motor options.

I'm very happy to see motor controllers going down in price over the last few years.

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by IKE

Very excited about additional motor controllers. A bit concerned about the lack of "vented" motors on the list. 550s and 775 had their issues with stall, but when done right, the air cool was nice for consistent performance.

Anyone have issues with BAG motors overheating in heavy competition? I would assume they get and stay hot similar to CIMS which is a bit concerning when you have back to back matches. Any experience?

We burnt out at least 10 on our practice robot before we switched them to different motors before out 1st comp last year.

Edit:

After several PM's I should note that we were not using the BAG's properly and that our systems last year were extremely inefficient with lots off loss to make up for, as well as several times the motors were stalled for an extreme amount of time.

We will continue to uses BAG's in the future as they are excellent motors when used properly(crazy how that works).

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

The roboRIO brownout schedule isn't harsh enough for you?

This.

If FRC goes back to a game which encourages vigorous interaction similar to that of 2014, expect "we had that match until we browned out!" or "we suddenly stopped moving, I have no idea why" to become a common refrain.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Karthik

This.

If FRC goes back to a game which encourages vigorous interaction similar to that of 2014, expect "we had that match until we browned out!" or "we suddenly stopped moving, I have no idea why" to become a common refrain.

Many engineers would benefit from watching "Apollo 13" -- with special attention to the intense effort required to develop a critical procedure that satisfied the electric power constraint. When failure was not an option.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

Many engineers would benefit from watching "Apollo 13" -- with special attention to the intense effort required to develop a critical procedure that satisfied the electric power constraint. When failure was not an option.

Agreed. This should be a huge consideration for all teams. However I worry that the teams who barely have time to finish a moving/functional robot are not going to have the resources to dedicate to power management solutions to avoid brownout conditions. Perhaps this is a topic for another thread, but we as a community will need to work hard to educate teams about this constraint.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Agreed. This should be a huge consideration for all teams. However I worry that the teams who barely have time to finish a moving/functional robot are not going to have the resources to dedicate to power management solutions to avoid brownout conditions. Perhaps this is a topic for another thread, but we as a community will need to work hard to educate teams about this constraint.

Agreed. We're going to end up with some mentors and students working on power management based around current monitoring from the PDP. Hopefully we can write a whitepaper about it once we've figured out how to implement it.

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by Karthik

This.

If FRC goes back to a game which encourages vigorous interaction similar to that of 2014, expect "we had that match until we browned out!" or "we suddenly stopped moving, I have no idea why" to become a common refrain.

No, they're certain they know why. It's because the FMS is broken or the FMS hates them.

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by marshall

Agreed. We're going to end up with some mentors and students working on power management based around current monitoring from the PDP. Hopefully we can write a whitepaper about it once we've figured out how to implement it.

I for one am very happy that the PDP now has this feature.
After so many years of this I am glad that a function that can help with this is actually legal on the robot on the competition field and basically included.

In past years any attempt by myself to determine these factors was actually limited by my ability to get someone to leave the robot alone long enough to do the measurements or by the fact that I couldn't legally put my gear on the competition floor. Now the tools are there one merely needs to use them.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Perhaps this is a topic for another thread, but we as a community will need to work hard to educate teams about this constraint.

Can we start with someone providing the voltage at which the roboRIO (or anything else critical) drops out and resets?

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Can we start with someone providing the voltage at which the roboRIO (or anything else critical) drops out and resets?

Sure. Page 7.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Monochron

Sure. Page 7.

And for folks who just want it and don't wanna download a PDF...

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Can we start with someone providing the voltage at which the roboRIO (or anything else critical) drops out and resets?

Also listed here in the WPILib Docs

[marshall]

I love this thread. Three responses with answers for the question in a row but all in different forms.