Can we use globe motors this year?

[fox46]

I have to say I too am extremely dissapointed with banebots but also with FIRST for eliminating all the great motor options we used to have- Two FP motors, Globe motors, Van door, Keyang, seat motors. KOPs from the past used to have such a variety of power options, now all we have are little screamers that whizz along at 20000 RPM (aside from the sacred CIMs). I am sure it has made life much harder for many rookie teams and those short on resources.

It is my firm belief that banebots donated the motors to FIRST in hopes of it generating business for their company. What do you do with a motor that has a 20000 RPM output? The only logical solution given our weight and size restrictions is a planetary reduction. Who has the planetary reductions?

Unfortunately I don't think Banebots anticipated the demand for their product and as a result the teams are paying the price in lost build time. I applaud Banebots for donating the motors for the KOP but I am furious that due to a lack of other options we have essentially been forced to buy their products to build our robots. What's next? CIMs replaced by RS775s? All they have to do is donate a couple more RS775s with some CIMulators and FIRST will nix the CIMS. Then they have a monopoly on the motor supply to all teams and we are at their mercy.

Anyway, I have to get back to dissassembling cordless drills and trying to retrofit globe gearboxes......

[MrForbes]

Strangely we started using window motors this year, we only need two motors for our mechanisms (and one pneumatic cylinder, so I guess we also need the compressor with it's motor). The window motors seem to be a pretty good fit with our two armed robot. And they're free. And we have spares. We never have been able to figure out how to use a Globe motor for anything, ever.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by fox46

CIMs replaced by RS775s? All they have to do is donate a couple more RS775s with some CIMulators and FIRST will nix the CIMS. Then they have a monopoly on the motor supply to all teams and we are at their mercy.

Anyway, I have to get back to dissassembling cordless drills and trying to retrofit globe gearboxes......

Gosh, I hope we never have 775's as the main motors in a DT. It isn't a power thing it is a thermal mass thing. The CIM weighs in at a beefy 2.5 pounds and that heat dissipates through most of the motor. This makes it pretty hard to cook a CIM. Compare this to a 775 which is a pretty small motor with a ton of power. If we stall those out (a real possibility) they will cook much faster than a CIM.

Cordless drills, DOHT! Stupid Andrew, you have like 6 of those old Bosch transmissions sitting in the back room. Even pulled 4 of em off old bots. I'm gonna go bang my head on a wall in embarrassment of my mental failing.

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by fox46

I have to say I too am extremely dissapointed with banebots but also with FIRST for eliminating all the great motor options we used to have- Two FP motors, Globe motors, Van door, Keyang, seat motors. KOPs from the past used to have such a variety of power options, now all we have are little screamers that whizz along at 20000 RPM (aside from the sacred CIMs). I am sure it has made life much harder for many rookie teams and those short on resources.

It is my firm belief that banebots donated the motors to FIRST in hopes of it generating business for their company. What do you do with a motor that has a 20000 RPM output? The only logical solution given our weight and size restrictions is a planetary reduction. Who has the planetary reductions?

Why do you really need to gear the motor(s) that slow? The slowest shaft on our 2011 robot only needs a three-stage reduction, and that's our drive train in low gear. All other mechanism shafts on our robot spin well over 1000 rpm at nominal load. None of these are accomplished via planetary gear reductions, but rather via simple spur gear or timing belt speed reductions.

Seriously, with the FP and "choose any four" BaneBot offer, I absolutely love the motor selection this year. There are up to nine motors you can use on your robot that output over 250 Watts each! Compared to ~85 Watts for Globe, and less than 50 W for any past Window motor, this year's motor selection is the best I've ever seen (since 2004). No other year has a team been able to throw over 1000 Watts into a manipulator and not sweat taking away drive train performance. While some may question the sanity of one kiloWatt manipulators, if you want to fly on water, you need power!

Originally Posted by fox46

Unfortunately I don't think Banebots anticipated the demand for their product and as a result the teams are paying the price in lost build time. I applaud Banebots for donating the motors for the KOP but I am furious that due to a lack of other options we have essentially been forced to buy their products to build our robots. What's next? CIMs replaced by RS775s? All they have to do is donate a couple more RS775s with some CIMulators and FIRST will nix the CIMS. Then they have a monopoly on the motor supply to all teams and we are at their mercy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

[fox46]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

I am supposed to be afraid of offending the FIRST and BaneBot gods? This is an open forum and I am entitled to my opinion. Futhermore, teams have paid significant sums of money to compete in this competition. FIRST delivers a product and we expect it to be of the highest quality. These "slippery slopes" although possibly offensive and seemingly ungrateful representations of people's dissatisfaction are what help improve the FIRST product.

All other mechanism shafts on our robot spin well over 1000 rpm at nominal load.

I hope you don't have an arm on your robot.

I agree, the power is nice but not if you can't use it. Why not go for more motors like the CIMs with a reasonable 5000RPM output? - The answer is they're more expensive and the temptation to turn down a free set of motors is irresistable to the KOP designers. If the BaneBot motors were indeed a donation, then why did they have to get rid of all the other motor options? Why not improve the KOP and make it more diverse rather than saying "Oh, well we have these four motors... that should be enough..."

[ratdude747]

free is free... you want to pay extra for non-free motors? FIRST isn't made out of money.

maybe AM will make a compatible planetary next year... it can't be that hard...

[fox46]

you want to pay extra for non-free motors? FIRST isn't made out of money.

Yes- yes I would. Very much so. BaneBot gearboxes arent free either and so far we have blown over $300 on gearboxes we likely won't even use.

The BaneBot motor set retails for about $40 straight from their site. YES I would most definitely pay $40 if it had meant we could keep the old motors and have the BBs too. FIRST doesnt even have to supply the motors- For all I care they don't have to give us any motors at all- just provide us with a fast reliable and expedient way to buy them. These components are DIRT cheap! Especially when purchased in bulk quantitites. Why do you think BaneBots got into supplying FIRST with motors? They retail on their site for between $5 and $20 and thats including a markup for their business so you can imagine how cheap their FOB (fresh off the boat) cost is. The same applies to motors of the past. They really aren't that expensive. Even the CIM retails on BB's site for $28.

To reiterate- YES I have no problem buying all the KOP motors if it means we get a greater variety to choose from.

[MrForbes]

You never could buy a Globe motor.....

[Mr.G]

Originally Posted by squirrel

You never could buy a Globe motor.....

This is a false statement. I have ordered them prior years many times.

Originally Posted by fox46

I have to say I too am extremely dissapointed with banebots but also with FIRST for eliminating all the great motor options we used to have- Two FP motors, Globe motors, Van door, Keyang, seat motors. KOPs from the past used to have such a variety of power options, now all we have are little screamers that whizz along at 20000 RPM (aside from the sacred CIMs). I am sure it has made life much harder for many rookie teams and those short on resources.

It is my firm belief that banebots donated the motors to FIRST in hopes of it generating business for their company. What do you do with a motor that has a 20000 RPM output? The only logical solution given our weight and size restrictions is a planetary reduction. Who has the planetary reductions?

Unfortunately I don't think Banebots anticipated the demand for their product and as a result the teams are paying the price in lost build time. I applaud Banebots for donating the motors for the KOP but I am furious that due to a lack of other options we have essentially been forced to buy their products to build our robots. What's next? CIMs replaced by RS775s? All they have to do is donate a couple more RS775s with some CIMulators and FIRST will nix the CIMS. Then they have a monopoly on the motor supply to all teams and we are at their mercy.

Anyway, I have to get back to dissassembling cordless drills and trying to retrofit globe gearboxes......

I agree with this. We have noticed a large reduction in the amount of stuff we get in the kits without a reduction in kit cost also.

[Matt C]

Originally Posted by fox46

I have to say I too am extremely dissapointed with banebots but also with FIRST for eliminating all the great motor options we used to have- Two FP motors, Globe motors, Van door, Keyang, seat motors.

Don't forget the mighty drill motors from before the CIMs, or the giant FP CIM from 06.

or the "high torque" servo . . but that wasn't all that useful other than for ballast.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Mr.G

This is a false statement. I have ordered them prior years many times.

Where from? how long ago?

The Banebots transmissions are a hot item, I wonder why that is?. Looks like it's time for someone else to get into the small planetary transmission business, if BB can't keep up. There could be money to be made! Their transmissions fit standard motors...there's nothing proprietary about the motors they sell. That's probably why they are so inexpensive.

Art's right about the slippery slope thing...claiming that we won't be able to use CIMs in the future for our drivetrains based on the fact that we get 4 Banebots motors in the kit this year, is kind of ludicrous.

[Matt C]

Originally Posted by squirrel

The Banebots transmissions are a hot item, I wonder why that is?. Looks like it's time for someone else to get into the small planetary transmission business, if BB can't keep up. There could be money to be made! Their transmissions fit standard motors...there's nothing proprietary about the motors they sell. That's probably why they are so inexpensive.

It's be nice to invest some capital into tooling and designs for comparable transmissions, but then of course we could always not get the BB motors in next year's kit.

[MrForbes]

yup.

Where did the Globe motors come from? Were they donated? How much do regular production motors like that cost through normal distribution channels? The Globe is a nice heavy motor, but it's not something I'd want to be buying 8,000 of at normal cost every year.

Perhaps the GDC ought to consider defining a set of standard motor interfaces...the assortment of BB motors this year sort of does that, and continues a trend over the past few years.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by fox46

I am supposed to be afraid of offending the FIRST and BaneBot gods? This is an open forum and I am entitled to my opinion. Futhermore, teams have paid significant sums of money to compete in this competition. FIRST delivers a product and we expect it to be of the highest quality. These "slippery slopes" although possibly offensive and seemingly ungrateful representations of people's dissatisfaction are what help improve the FIRST product.

I think you completely missed the point of his post. The link provided did not say "you're not allowed to dislike FIRST's decisions", it said that saying something is bad because other unrelated decisions would be bad is a logical fallacy.

[Matt C]

Originally Posted by squirrel

yup.

Where did the Globe motors come from? Were they donated? How much do regular production motors like that cost through normal distribution channels? The Globe is a nice heavy motor, but it's not something I'd want to be buying 8,000 of at normal cost every year.

I believe the Globe motors were used in automatic 4x4 transfer cases, but I've never confirmed it.
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