[FRC Blog] 2017 Motor (and Servo?) Controllers and MXP

[bobbysq]

Agreed. The DMC60 apears to just be a Victor SP clone that costs $10 more. The SD540C is intriguing though, having CAN for only $50. I'm not sure it provides much of an advantage over the SPARK still though, unless you want to use more than 10.
Edit: I just noticed that the blog post notes "closed loop features" but the product page just mentions limit switches, which are on the SD540/B, as well as the SPARK. If it does have PID control features it's pretty much game over for the SRX.

The REV servo controller seems interesting, although I can't seem to find it on REV's site. If it's just a single thing for a servo, it might not be worth it, (and one could probably inject more power into the PWM wires by splicing) but if it has multiple ports, it could be cool to have if you had a lot of servos.

[Lil' Lavery]

Curious to see what the 2017 Servo rules will look like. Could kill off the small niches in which the NeveRest 60 had some FRC applicability.

[Bkeeneykid]

Originally Posted by bobbysq

Agreed. The DMC60 apears to just be a Victor SP clone that costs $10 more. The SD540C is intriguing though, having CAN for only $50. I'm not sure it provides much of an advantage over the SPARK still though, unless you want to use more than 10.

The REV servo controller seems interesting, although I can't seem to find it on REV's site. If it's just a single thing for a servo, it might not be worth it, (and one could probably inject more power into the PWM wires by splicing) but if it has multiple ports, it could be cool to have if you had a lot of servos.

I also couldn't find the new Huskie board either, and that certainly seems interesting. 3061 posted an image of it on their twitter account, but this is all that I've seen of it: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CcwNFi2WIAAy5H9.jpg.

Honestly, looking at the DMC-60's manual, it looks like it was trying to be a SP but then they went over budget. $10 cheaper, it would have been great. But hey, it now has four lights. How's that for innovation? I'll get our robot to look even more like a disco on the inside.

I do think CAN offers a lot of advantages over a PWM controller like the SPARK. Assuming they can solve some of the issues that the one amazon review had pointed out (the amazon product page has seemingly disappeared, presumably to replace with the SD540C), I think this could be a great product.

[Lil' Lavery]

The Digilent DMC60 has a much higher maximum voltage (28VDC) than the Victor SP (16VDC), which makes it suitable for a wider range of non-FRC applications. The integrated thermistor would also come in handy in applications with longer run times than ~150 seconds.

The voltage protection features are interesting for FRC. Cutting off the motor's power before the RoboRio browns out could be a positive feature. However the current settings indicate a 5.75V Under Voltage Protection, which is lower than the RoboRio's 6.8V BrownOut Phase 1 condition. Additionally the 5.75V protection doesn't kick in until after 5 seconds. Anyone have any insight into time-based criteria for RoboRio Phase 1 brownouts?
General empirical performance testing when compared against the Victor SP and Spark would also be useful information to have.

[cad321]

Originally Posted by Bkeeneykid

Assuming they can solve some of the issues that the one amazon review had pointed out (the amazon product page has seemingly disappeared, presumably to replace with the SD540C), I think this could be a great product.

Although I can't say for certain, it looks as though they've made the new version a little more robust. In the picture it looks as though the case is now injection molded, and some of the connections appear to be more "professional." For me, as long as it functions as advertised and the finished product is held in something more robust than a 3d printed case, I would be happy. This is a motor controller giving you CAN capabilities for sub $50. I think they would make a great addition to a teams arsenal for when you don't need all the power of an SRX, but don't want to deal with adding pesky PWM cables.

[mman1506]

I have a feeling that the DMC-60 might be a Vex OEM product. NI also offers a lot of post secondary educational robotics solutions and it could be an addition to the product line that also has use in FRC. I'd be an odd move for NI to copy something so blatantly. Could anyone from Vex comment?

[Mike Copioli]

Originally Posted by mman1506

I have a feeling that the DMC-60 might be a Vex OEM product. NI also offers a lot of post secondary educational robotics solutions and it could be an addition to the product line that also has use in FRC. I'd be an odd move for NI to copy something so blatantly. Could anyone from Vex comment?

The DMC-60 is not a VEX or CTRE product.

[mman1506]

Originally Posted by Mike Copioli

The DMC-60 is not a VEX or CTRE product.

Wow, that makes me put a lot less faith in the product.

[Deetman]

Originally Posted by mman1506

Wow, that makes me put a lot less faith in the product considering how NI handled the Jaguar.

The Jaguar was developed and built originally by Texas Instruments (TI) (well technically a company that got acquired by TI). I don't remember National Instruments (NI) doing anything with development or support of the Jaguars, but I could have missed that.

[Nate Laverdure]

Agreed that It's Tricky to see why an FRC team would choose to Run DMCs over the Victor SP.

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by bobbysq

The REV servo controller seems interesting, although I can't seem to find it on REV's site. If it's just a single thing for a servo, it might not be worth it, (and one could probably inject more power into the PWM wires by splicing) but if it has multiple ports, it could be cool to have if you had a lot of servos.

Sorry we were late making our product page public. You can learn more about it here http://www.revrobotics.com/rev-11-1144/

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Curious to see what the 2017 Servo rules will look like. Could kill off the small niches in which the NeveRest 60 had some FRC applicability.

We don't know what the rules will end up being but this is designed to allow much larger servos on robots, so I would hope the rules are open enough to allow them. In addition to our Smart robot servo, there are plenty of large scale servos available in the open market.

The real added benefits of this come from cost per degree of freedom, since you don't need a separate motor controller for your servos you can save at-least $45 per actuation over a motor by just removing that requirement. We will all learn in January what FIRST will allow this year.

[pilleya]

Originally Posted by SRM Product Page

The Servo Power Module is a 6V 90W power injector that enables the use of high-power RC servos in applications where a robot controller cannot directly provide adequate power.

There are some really powerful Brushless Servos with steel/titanium gears out in the RC marketplace so this sounds like an awesome addition to the electrical components that FRC teams have available to them.

Some of the High-End Brushless Servo's can be more than $100 so it seems like there could be disparity between what the Servos teams have available to them. But we will have to wait until we see the specific rules.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Anyone know of any extra documentation on what the SD540C gives you?

[Rich Anderson]

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

Sorry we were late making our product page public. You can learn more about it here http://www.revrobotics.com/rev-11-1144/



We don't know what the rules will end up being but this is designed to allow much larger servos on robots, so I would hope the rules are open enough to allow them. In addition to our Smart robot servo, there are plenty of large scale servos available in the open market.

The real added benefits of this come from cost per degree of freedom, since you don't need a separate motor controller for your servos you can save at-least $45 per actuation over a motor by just removing that requirement. We will all learn in January what FIRST will allow this year.

I am working on a prototype turret driven by a pixy cam, and am worried about the servo load on the pixy. Would the motor controller be the answer for an arduino server output too? I am thinking of using a parallel 12v to 5v power supply similar to the LED light hookup on the RioDuino. The servo power supply sounds neat if the game calls for servos this year (I would like to use the Smart servos, which we already have in our inventory).

[EmileH]

How come Analog Devices' ADIS16448 isn't listed as an approved device on the MXP, even though it is available in FIRST Choice?