Victor Brakes

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Alex698

I don't know if this thought will help, but what about regenerative braking?

I figure(correct me if you see errors), put a single-pole, double throw contact switch between motor, victor and leads to diodes then to a battery. By switching to the leads with diodes the motors are turned into generators by the forward motion of the robot. The diodes are so the battery doesn't back into the motors causing them to run at full.

Sounds interesting, but also illegal under 2006 rules. Per <R59>, custom circuits may not "[d]irectly alter the power pathways between the battery, fuse blocks, speed controller/relay, and motor." (Excepting voltage- and current-measuring devices.)

Originally Posted by Andy A.

Edit- The method that I know of for remotely turning the dynamic brake on and off is to wire the jumper pins to a limit switch, and toggling the switch with a servo (or other mechanism). I don't know exactly how the pins function, so I couldn't say what the result of applying voltage from a digital out might be. Can you simply cause digital out to create a short? If so, that would be a much simpler way of doing it, although possibly illegal.

Per <R70>, "[d]igital outputs of the Robot Controller may be connected directly to brake/coast headers on the speed controllers to permits [sic] programmable control of this speed controller function. The brake/coast header on the speed controller may NOT be connected to any other circuit or input."