Realistic high goal scoring rate

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by MaGiC_PiKaChU

we were shooting from that distance to see how the wheel slowed down. By adding mass to the flywheel and shooting from closer, accuracy will go up a lot

I need to revisit my flywheel spinup spreadsheet and add a few new features to it. Think I'll do that tonight.

At any rate, if you're using an encoder to do closed loop control of your shooter speed, you want a specific gear ratio to maximize your rate of fire. You want a gear ratio that has the motor spinning at 1/2 its free speed when your wheel is at target speed, or something very close to this (err on the side of a bit more reduction). This puts the motor at its peak power point when its at firing speed, which will minimize the recovery time to target speed, or atleast minimize the speed drop when dumping an entire load of balls.

Interestingly, this is not the gear ratio that spins the motor up from zero to target speed the fastest. That depends on the system dynamics, but the example I'm working with has that ratio at 40% more reduction, and increases recovery time by 16%. Which would give you a rate of fire of 86% the theoretical max.