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one side drive train locking up
Posted by Ken Leung at 2/6/2001 2:06 PM EST
Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M. Gunn Senior High School.
In Reply to: Joe Johnson Please Read....
Posted by Brian on 2/6/2001 7:33 AM EST:
Are you sure the motor is really not moving? Is it not moving because there are no power to it or is it not moving because the motor is locked some where?
The reason I ask those questions is because we've been experiencing a similar problem with the same symptoms for the past year. And we figured out the root of the problem are the no-back pins. Well, last year we kept those pins in to hold our robot from sliding down the ramp, and the whole one-side drive train lockup thing started.
It turns out because of the drill motors are mounted so that one side of spinning forward and the other spinning backward, there is an inconsistency between the two motor in starting up. It's either that little timing difference or because the driver engage one side of the drive train a little faster than the other.
So what happened is whenever one side of drive train starts first, the other side got "pushed" by the ground and got locked in by the no-back pins. Just the same way you can't spin the chuck of hand drills when they are off. So the robot will start doing "donuts" on the field... And the driver always have to wiggle it to get it unlocked, while there is no telling what exact moves of wiggling will get it unlocked.
Now, I am not sure if you took those out already. But if not, they are likely to be the source of problem. Why don't you test the drive train out by lifting the robot off the ground and test it without load? Or even take the gearbox out and see if the motors are free spinning and if they will cut out just by themselves...
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