I’m a complete electrical noob, and am working on a initial design for a off-season swerve drive. I was wondering what components, hardware, etc. for a 4 wheel, 4 CIM, and 4 PG71 w/ encoder swerve drive.
Thanks in advance
Standard control system, plus (per module):
- Steer motor controller (probably Talon SRX)
- Drive motor controller (Talon SRX or Victor SPX)
- Steering ABSOLUTE encoder, the one in the PG71 is relative and won’t suffice (VP integrated is the easiest to package but MA3 is also a common one if using with a PG71)
- Drive encoder (CIMcoder is the easiest to package usually)
RoboRio
Power Distribution Panel
Voltage Regulator Module
Battery.
Wires
Crimpers
Connectors
Magic Dust
What is Magic Dust? I have never heard of it.
I think he meant magic smoke, it’s the substance that resides within electronics and makes them work. If you let it escape, the electronics stop working.
In Hebrew, there’s an imaginary thing called “electronic dust”. It’s supposed to be what makes all the electronics work. Kind of like magic smoke, but you need to add it to the electronics (it doesn’t come inside them already) and you can always put more in if you should lose it. For some reason, the freshmen can never find the bag :rolleyes:
Last I checked, it was next to the left handed screwdrivers and the metric monkey wrenches…
Core ingredient of Magic Smoke. It’s what springs fourth from motors when they are driven too vigorously.
+1
I was originally thinking the magic Boulder Dust- Magic Smoke got on my blacklist after the third or fourth smoked 775 Pro in 2017.
Magic dust is the solid form of magic smoke. It will turn into magic smoke when heated. At most standard atmospheric pressures, the dust will sublimate directly into smoke (skips over the liquid phase). However, in some special laboratory conditions, you can actually get magic dust to change into its liquid form - magic juice!
You can use whatever motor controllers you want. If your intention is to develop a design that you can implement in-season, then you will probably want to use the types of motor controllers that you intend to use for competition. However, if you do not want to invest in the higher end motor controllers right away, you can do quite a bit of mechanical and code development with left over motor controllers from previous years (sparks, etc.).
The absolute steering encoder is the best way to go. We use this:
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That’s the stuff that comes out of the batteries sometimes, right?