While I have been able to see a lot of interesting discussion for FRC, does anyone have any suggestions for motor controllers and motors for people interested in making robots for hobby or art piece? Are there specific companies that specialize in these things, or should I focus on using products similar to the ones we know and love for FRC. General, I’m looking for something stronger than a servo, programmable, “affordable”. I looked through past posts, but didn’t seem to find much.
If this topic is too broad, feel free to ask me about the specific projects I have in mind, Thanks!
Depending on what you actually need, there are a few options. If you’re fine without feedback and playing a bit fast and loose, hobby stuff, usually from HobbyKing or less reputable retailers, will be the way to go price wise.
If you’re looking for a more complete, pre-established ecosystem there’s not much better than FRC in the price range. For smaller scale stuff, I could see VexEDR components being very useful.
There’s a pretty big difference between just making a motor spin and making it do specific things, which will determine the other requirements of the system.
Better, oldFRC stuff. A Talon SR or SPARK was cheap, robust, and could even run 20V or so making cheap drill batteries an easy way to get up and running. I’ve run the same ones in Fight Night robots for years. REV says they’re doing a run of the latter for 2020, so be on the stick if that’s your lead option.
For motors, if you can deal with the tabs BaneBots 550s are sub-$10, a known quantity, and reasonably powerful.
Oops, I think I mixed them up with Thor 883s, which can handle that. Those are going to be a lot harder to find unless you know some old battlebots teams or something.
I was thinking FRC for more the modern control system integration and various vendor libraries that are all designed to work for it, especially for stuff like motion magic.
Old stuff is totally valid if you’re not too concerned with that.
Additionally, the standard 883 can also handle higher voltages, just not higher amperage like the Thor.
Victor 883, 885, Talon OG/SR, black Jaguar, Talon SRX, SD540B*, DMC60C** and SparkMAX are all compatible with 18v drill batteries. Many of those go as high as 24 and several up past 30 volts, though the fan cooled controllers will often need a fan rated for the higher input voltage.
For smaller projects, I’ve been having a lot of fun with n20 style gear motors. You can find them on websites like Aliexpress for $3-4 and usually they work with smalll ESC’s like these for the same price as the motor. You can’t really push them that hard, but they might be able to do more than you think and as far as I’m aware are a go to motor for Antweight class combat robots.
Whoa. I thought these were gone forever, and I wished I’d had several more in hand when I thought that. The SPARK “classic” was the best deal I can recall for a robust FRC scale PWM controller with limit switch inputs built in. Now I have to figure out how many to stockpile…
It all depends on what your projects are. For most applications, I would suggest against using FRC products. FRC motor controllers are ideal for the environment they’re designed for, and often contain features that are unnecessary for other projects, ratings that are either overkill or inadequate for other projects, or have form factors that don’t suit other projects.
For instance, if all you want to do is drive two smaller motors at 6.5A currents off of a radio control, something like the Scoprion Micro ESC can get that job done for $35.
Start by telling us what you’re trying to do and what are your system specs?
What voltage are you planning on running at?
What motors do you want to drive? Brushed? Brushless? AC? Stepper?
What currents (continuous and peak) do you anticipate drawing?
What sensors (if any) will you be using?
What microcontrollers (if any) will you be using?
What communications methods will you use to drive your speed controllers? CAN? PWM? USB?
What conditions will your project be in?
What is your desired uptime? Duty cycle?
There’s a ton of options out there, depending on what you’re intending to do. Check out vendors like Fingertech, Horizon Hobby, RobotShop, AmpFlow, Sparkfun, and even VEX to see what’s out there. The communities built around RC cars, RC planes, quadrotors, combat robotics, robosumo, and other maker-oriented hobbies have a lot of products out there that cater towards them that could be of interest to you.
Always knew there was something weird with this controller, though I don’t really know any of the true details from the history of it. Heck, I don’t even know which years it was FRC legal.
If CTRE’s allegations are true (which I personally believe them to be, albeit without having seen any real evidence) the case seems preeety cut and dry…
EDIT: Oh my lord they even copied the shape of the cardboard packaging…
Some back story. Two of my class right now in college are ‘flower arranging & indoor plant management’ and ‘modern dance’. I got roped into an experimental dance concert, and wanted to create a piece the emphasized the importance of collaborating nature, humans, and technology into our future. Thus, I got the ambitious idea to develop a robotic exoskeleton that would allow plants (both live and freshly cut) to dance aside humans.
The areas I’m focusing on are the spinal bending movement (1d), arm extension, and rotation of the entire body. I’ve developed a proof of concept and prototype for the spinal column, as well as a mock up of how the other two components would work. Currently, the only thing keeping me from pulling the trigger and finishing the entire project is cost. A full control system on a college budget can be a bit tough.
As for exactly what level of precision I want to control the robot, I wanted to hold back until I asked others opinions. More control is always better, but in a sense, this is just version 1.0 of the robots/art piece, so perfection is not a must.
It’s a shame, since the 28VDC max voltage of the DMC60C opens it up to a lot of non-FRC utility for projects that still want CAN control and smart ESC features at a higher voltage rating than FRC products.
If this is how I’m imagining it in my head, you should be able to do everything with simple linkages that can be powered from continuous rotation. In that case, some simple PWM generators and low amperage speed controllers would be all you need in terms of a control system.
@Lil_Lavery the Talon SRX fills that hole quite nicely already, and they happen to be “on sale”.
I mean, I’m all for better hobbyist motor controllers and FRC legal options, but when you copy and paste code and even the exact shape of the cardboard, you kind of have it coming for you .
They’re certainly cheap, and once the lawsuit is over I bet there will be a few free ones in the dumpsters like others have said.
I swear I’ve read the manual throughly since 2017 and I have never once noticed the DMC controllers being legal, I would have bet a large sum of money that they weren’t legal in 2019, but alas I’m an idiot. Somehow the first time I’d ever heard of them was like a month ago.
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