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

[Bkeeneykid]

Posted on the FRC Blog, 12/16/2016: http://www.firstinspires.org/robotic...ontrollers-mxp

2017 Motor (and Servo?) Controllers and MXP
Written by Kevin O'Connor, FIRST Robotics Competition Robotics Engineer.
It’s getting to be that time of year where many teams are working on budgets for control system items and planning pre-Kickoff purchases so we wanted to let you know about some changes to legal actuator controllers and MXP boards for 2017.

Actuator Controllers

The complete actuator controller list from 2016 will be legal for 2017:

A. Motor Controllers

• Jaguar Motor Controller (P/N: MDL-BDC, MDL-BDC24, and 217-3367)
• SD540 Motor Controller (P/N: SD540x1, SD540x2, SD540x4, SD540Bx1, SD540Bx2, SD540Bx4)
• Spark Motor Controller (P/N: REV-11-1200)
• Talon Motor Controller (P/N: CTRE_Talon, CTRE_Talon_SR, and am-2195)
• Talon SRX Motor Controller (P/N: 217-8080, am-2854, 14-838288)
• Victor 884 Motor Controller (P/N: VICTOR-884-12/12)
• Victor 888 Motor Controller (P/N: 217-2769)
• Victor SP Motor Controller (P/N: 217-9090, am-2855, 14-868380)

B. Relay Modules

• Spike H-Bridge Relay (P/N: 217-0220 and SPIKE-RELAY-H)

C. Pneumatics controllers

• Pneumatics Control Module (P/N: am-2858, 217-4243)

In addition, the following new devices have been approved for 2017:

Digilent DMC60 Motor Controller (Part #: P/N: 410-334-1)

The DMC60 is a PWM motor controller with a 60A continuous current rating, four multi-color LED indicators for feedback, integrated thermal sensing and protection to prevent overheating and damage, and a sealed, ruggedized, and compact aluminum case. For full details, please consult Digilent’s specification sheet.

Mindsensors SD540C (Part# SD540C)

Mindsensors.com has been a long time mentor of FIRST Robotics Competition Team 540 and designed this controller jointly with Team 540 students. This controller is manufactured in USA. The SD540C is a CAN enabled version of the series of SD540 motor controllers introduced last season, enabling many of closed loop features teams have come to enjoy with other CAN motor controllers. The SD540C will use the new “Device Library” software approach described previously in the Blog, so check the Mindsensors website for both device and software availability.

REV Servo Power Module

The Servo Power Module from REV Robotics enables teams to use larger and/or more servos on their robots than can be powered from the roboRIO alone by taking the signal from roboRIO PWM ports and injecting external power onto the power wire. As always, read the 2017 Robot Rules carefully to make sure you understand how to use this device legally and what devices may be legally used with it. The Servo Power Module will be available on or before Kickoff on the Rev Robotics website.

MXP

The complete active MXP list from 2016 will be legal for 2017:

• Kauai Labs navX MXP
• RCAL MXP Daughterboard
• REV Robotics RIOduino
• REV Robotics Digit Board
• WCP Spartan Sensor Board

In addition, a new board, the “Huskie Board”, has been approved for 2017:

Huskie Board

The Huskie Board is a board designed by FIRST Robotics Competition Team 3061 and manufactured and distributed by Playing With Fusion Inc. The board provides features including: data logging to micro-SD, breakout of roboRIO PWM and Analog I/O, additional analog input expansion, LCD serial connection, 4 controllable indicator LEDs, a 4-switch DIP switch input, and more. The board and software will be available from the Playing With Fusion website.

[Bkeeneykid]

Is there something I'm missing, because I see no advantage to the new DMC-60 other than "integrated thermal sensing and protection to prevent overheating and damage". Can someone enlighten me? I figure for only $20 I can get CAN and a SRX with all of it's advantages, or just get a Victor SP.

[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.

[Nate Laverdure]

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

[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.

[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.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Basel A

I notice the NavX Micro isn't on the legal list, that's a bit disappointing.

The NavX Micro isn't an MXP board.

[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.