AndyMark recommends breaking in the Toughbox Mini for 30 minutes, ungreased to wear the gears in. Our team is having trouble with finding a system to connect them to do so. Our robot is obviously bagged, and when we hook them up directly to a battery, we get sparks. Our power stations are not strong enough to run the system for 30 minutes without getting damaged. So I must ask, how did you guys break in your ToughBox Minis?
Sparks where? At the battery? At the motor? At the gearbox?
Use a motor controller and an inexpensive PWM signal generator (you can get one on eBay for less than 3 dollars, including free shipping).
Ether, the sparks were at the battery.
So when you made the connection at the battery it sparked momentarily, not continuously, right?
This is normal, but not safe (explosion hazard due to battery gases).
It was not sparking, but rather arcing continuously, and it would not stop until the wire was taken off.
By “at the battery” what do you mean? At the battery terminal? As in, you were just touching a wire to the battery terminal??
Arcing at the battery terminal?? How were you connecting the wire to the battery terminal? Just a bare wire touching terminal?
Yes, it was arcing at the battery terminal, we were connecting the wire straight to the terminal.
I sounds like you are saying someone was holding a wire and touching it directly to the battery terminal.
If that is what you meant, don’t do that. It’s dangerous.
Always use a battery that has the proper terminal clamps, properly insulated, with wires leading away from the battery to appropriate connectors.
If you have a spare main breaker switch, you could use that to turn the circuit on/off.
But it’s much better to use a motor controller and a PWM signal generator.
You can buy an inexpensive PWM signal generator for less than 3 dollars, including free shipping.
And: safety dictates you should have an appropriately sized fuse or breaker in the circuit to protect the wires.
If your robot is bagged how you are you powering the motors? If its really bagged I don’t recommend you running the motor, the metal dust may get into roboRIO or other electrical components (this is besides legality of powering while robot is in bag). You can wait till your un-bag time and run the gear box with while vacuuming or blowing air away from electrical components.
I inferred this activity was taking place outside the bag, completely separate from the robot in the bag.
@Dominick: please clarify.
Ether, I am sure you did, you are one of the most trusted CD contributors. I was concerned about the op and any team who has to answer inspector and LRI.
You can use a servo tester (http://a.co/cWO4jpz) and any motor controller that takes a PWM signal (Victor, Spark, etc.) to run the motor in a more controlled way. As Ether said, you should have a breaker between the motor controller and the battery.
Yes, we are running the motors outside of the bag, on a completely different system from our bagged robot.
Dominick do you have a spare talon sr or a spark motor controller lying around? Also do you have an arduino lying around? I can show you how to make a very simple test bench with an arduino generating a pwm signal and a pwm motor controller such as a talon sr or a spark motor controller.
I can even show you how to add a potentiometer to control the speed of the motor 
. Video linked below from when I built my motor test box earlier in the year:
We are using sparks to test now, but are currently at a stand still as our motors were massively overheating, and we need a higher amp fuse.
I second the idea of buying a servo tester. They’re super inexpensive and very handy. The cheap ones ship from China and take a few weeks to arrive, though, which may not be helpful for your immediate needs.
I would recommend building a control systems tester/trainer on a piece of plywood. You could start with a motor controller and a PWM signal generator on a board with a circuit breaker and battery connector. This would allow you to test motors and gearboxes in isolation, and it would also be useful if you wanted to prototype things like shooters.
My team invested in a full control system (RoboRio, PDP, radio, compressor, etc.) laid out on a plywood board so that students can learn how to program and use individual devices like motor controllers or limit switches without requiring access to the robot. It is also a great way to train your electrical students.
Well first of, make sure that you have terminals on your frc batteries. Then make a “connector wire” that converts the main frc battery terminal into something like an anderson power pole. Connect the anderson power poles to the power side of the spark (I personally didn’t bother with a fuse) (make sure you don’t hook it up backwards (negative to positive and vice versa) I did that with one of our talon sr’s accidentally, and boom came the magic smoke.)
Then make a pwm cable connecting the red to 5v on your arduino, the black to ground, and the white to a digital port on the arduino.
Additionally hook up a standard potentiometer to your arduino. I included the code I made for my motor test box below. Let me know if you need more details (I know I was a bit vague).
#include <Servo.h> //This comes with the Arduino
int talon_pin = 3;
Servo talon;
/* The 'Servo.h' library allows you to control motors and servos by passing any value between
0 and 180 into the "write" method (talon.write() in this program).
For a motor: 0 is full power in one direction,
180 is full direction in the opposite direction,
90 is stop.
For a servo: 0 is all the way one direction,
180 is all the way in the opposite direction,
90 is the middle.
*/
int talon_max_forward = 130; //this might not actually be forward
int talon_max_reverse = 50; //this might not actually be reverse
int talon_stop = 95; //this is definitely stop (if the Talon is calibrated right)
void setup() {
talon.attach(talon_pin); //This tells the arduino to control this pin like it's a servo/motor
}
void loop() {
int potValue = analogRead(A0);
int speedValue = map(potValue, 0, 1023, 95, 180);
talon.write(speedValue); //full power one way
}
Get a 1/2 hex nut driver and run the output shaft with a drill. The 30 minutes don’t need to be perfectly uninterrupted to swap out batteries or hands.