SD540 Motor Controller

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by pnitin

Momentary drops are called spikes and most of the filter will take care of it ( you will not see brown out for spikes)

Citation needed.

[aldaeron]

https://xkcd.com/285/

[scca229]

As an FTAA watching plenty of matches during competitions from close behind the drivers (anyone at events where I've FTAA'd can affirm that I move around a LOT), I see MANY driver station displays with the battery section flashing red throughout the match to indicate voltage momentarily dropping below thresholds. Not sure a match goes by that doesn't have at least 1 robot where we are watching for a brownout so that we can quickly inform the team why the robot isn't moving when they tell us they lost connection to the field. I try to inform the coach as the match is still going on so that they see it happening in realtime and not just get told after the fact so they know what to look for when trouble starts.

I also kind of make a habit of looking at the battery voltage readout on each DS as I pass them verifying connection to the field to get an idea of which bots might be in trouble in the case that I see a sub-12V reading on the display. Sub-11.5V (and barring being way behind schedule) and I ask them if they have another battery next to the field that can be quickly swapped.