We have quite a few motors on our robot and they all have the same problem. We noticed they seemed weak, so we put a multimeter on them. They’re cycling 5-7-9 volts, never getting to the full 12. However if we bypass the Jags & Victors the motors run much stronger and we measure 12 volts.
What could cause this issue in Labview?
Opening a motor as a Victor but using a Jaguar will give less than full-scale output, so it could possibly be a programming issue.
I’d be looking at the wiring, though. It sounds like something close to the battery is dropping a lot of voltage.
All the motors, though? That’s some epicly bad wiring, if so. Sometime you can get effects like this if your code sends different values to a jaguar during a single loop cycle. If you’re accidentally zeroing out the motor command as well as setting it to full on, you can get a weird effect similar to this.
Our electrical mentor used to do wiring on the Space Shuttle, so I think he’s made sure the kids did a good job wiring our robot.
We’re not as confident in our programming skills though. We’ll try to find out if we’re cycling our motor voltages.
Thanks!
Feel free to post the relevant file(s) and someone will take a look at them.
have you calibrated your motor controllers; from my experience the factory calibration will allow a much lower voltage then the maximum.
I’m not sure what our programming team did, but it seems to be working well now. Thanks again!
Since you’re a mentor, you might want to find out. That kind of knowledge can be useful going forward.