Mixing Jaguars and Victors

[Nadav Zingerman]

Originally Posted by Rob Stehlik

On that note, I would say that the way things are done in FIRST is far from ideal. In industry, you would typically see a single motor sized large enough to handle the load. Or you might come across multiple motors connected in parallel to the same driver. Or motors electronically synchronized with encoders. But having separate drivers control two mechanically coupled motors is really asking for trouble. All it takes is a wrong connection or incorrect code to run the motors in opposite directions, which would stall both of them. And when motors stall, bad things happen.

How could that work seeing as they always spin at the same speed, and thus have the same encoder reading.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Nadav Zingerman

How could that work seeing as they always spin at the same speed, and thus have the same encoder reading.

Maybe they aren't connected using something that can't slip (like a gearbox--if you can cause that to slip, you've destroyed it).

He's not talking about FRC applications. What if you had two starter motors for your car, say, and they had slightly different turn speeds?

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Nadav Zingerman

How could that work seeing as they always spin at the same speed, and thus have the same encoder reading.

Imagine a 4WD robot where each wheel is independently driven without being slaved to any other (for example, a mecanum or crab drive). To drive straight you want to match all 4 motors to each other, but there is a "slipping" clutch between each of them (your tread material!).