In the past, yes it was a motor issue. Now it’s not*. It’s not a surprise anymore; I know the expectations going into it. It’s a $180 motor (at the time) that I need to buy a few extra of so I can QC them myself and RMA the defects. We knew that expectation going into it.
We QC’d all the motors except for the one that failed (The motor housing screws backed out in operation because there was no Loctite.) Vex QCing them isn’t the only solution. We should have QC’d ourselves before putting it on the robot. Throughout the competition, we should have been thorough enough during pre-match checks to identify the issue when the screws were just loose, not fully backed out.
If you used the second radio port 3 years ago and it didn’t work, that’s a radio issue. If you do it today knowing that the port is broken, that’s an organization, focus, and thoroughness issue. Defecting all the blame to the radio is just making excuses for not being diligent enough.
* Not worded great. Vex still caries blame but it’s not right for us to absolve ourselves of blame and push it all onto Vex knowing the information we did.
Read: I know the motor is broken out of the box and i know i need to spend extra time and money to fix it. That is literally an issue with the motor. The OM5P isint somehow immune to this either, its a radio issue and theres constant complaints about it, there simply isint alternatives to it unlike the Falcon.
Long term reliability of an unchecked Falcon 500 or V3 Falcon 500 is poor. Long term reliability of a checked V2 Falcon is great. No comment on Neos, we only ran them on our 2020 drivetrain, which didn’t exactly get much use, so I can’t make a real comparison.
Yes, but at the end of the day, robot performance and competitiveness-wise, it’s my team’s fault for not having adequate enough processes regardless of Vex’s processes. Specifically because we knew all the facts going into it, from specifically my team’s perspective and no one else’s, it’s just another point on the pros/cons list when picking motors. That’s all.
You knew the motor was broken when buying it. I frankly do not understand why you are defending VEX’s QC failures as a “my team” issue. You shouldn’t need to do this in the first place and I still fail to understand teams that willingly choose to spend $200+ per to a company that can barely figure out how to add Loctite to a motor, ignoring anything else that has happened with VEX in the last year.
If my Kia was stolen by the Kia Boys, I’d be mad at Kia. If I buy a 3 year old Kia today without an immobilizer knowing it doesn’t have an immobilizer, and knowing about the Kia Boys, and I don’t add an immobilizer myself, and the Kia Boys steal it, it’s on me.
With Falcons, it seems like we have to worry about the same mechanical things we’ve had to worry about with gearboxes - “did we do the assembly correctly”, “is everything supported in ways we’ve determined are best even though the mfr doesn’t suggest them”, “did we loctite everything”, etc. There are simply too many mechanical elements of failure in this motor that have snuck up on us at the worst time. The latest issue was the press fit of the splined motor shaft coming out of its hub on our Mk4i throttle motors . They’ve given us a bit of anxiety over the years because the failure modes only happen in the context of a mechanism running at full operation.
With NEOs, the usual suspect is 'did you pinch the tiny wire", and it’s usually detectable as a problem when the robot is booted. It’s easily inspectable, avoided, diagnosed, and fixed.
It would be incredibly inept of you to be buying a non-immobilized Kia, sure, but the onus is still on Kia to fix their product that its still Kia’s fault that the problem isint fixed, and owners are making sure they get what they are owed for Kia giving them a faulty product. Unlike VEX in your example, they are providing a free fix that they provide and install, unlike VEX (though, due to their phased approach they are frankly just as bad with having you get access to a wheel lock while you wait for your turn).
Yes, there are quality control issues with the Falcon motor and VEX as a company itself. There’s no point in arguing over something that we can’t control ourselves, in terms of the motor before being opened.
We had a great experience with using NEOs on our MK4i’s this year, we installed the NEOs back in November (if I remember correctly) and only experienced one full motor failure throughout build season and competition season. We had a retaining ring slip on one of our steering NEOs and pressed it back a little too hard… Leading to the casing breaking off as seen in the picture below, we learned our lesson on the first motor and utilized a deeper socket on the rest.
During playoffs at Champs we were driving the robot really hard and noticed that the casings on the rest of our NEO motors were starting to come loose. I don’t have any pictures of this but I’ll try to grab some tomorrow.
To be clear, we are very happy with the performance of the NEOs on our drivetrain and plan to continue to use NEOs in the future.
Having run NEOs all season i can say that i take no issue with the ecosystem, two regionals + worlds and no issues that arose from the motors that wernt a result of something else.
That being said, I do still have a soft spot for the CIMs and the fact that i have some used ones well over a decade old that still function just fine in practice/ prototyping. in terms of long term reliability I think those can take way more abuse, lol.
NEO’s all the way. The only issue we have ever had with any of our NEO’s in the last 2 years is one of them came with a messed up keyway. We’ve used them on intakes, elevators, swerve, and everything in between and we’ve never had an issue with a spark max or a NEO.
Would these issues have occurred had you been using a Falcon? I ask because I believe that “user error” failures still count - people are imperfect and products should plan around that.
I think both major players in the market are serving subpar products at the moment. I would buy most alternatives at the moment if only because I’m so fed up with NEOs and Falcons.
We had a couple motors have the case do this. It was our fault though and we thought we would be smart and mount something on the back of the motor. We just pushed them back down and used glue to hold the casing in place for the rest of the season and they worked great.
We have used both since they came out. My thoughts based on our experiences and my gut feeling.
Shafts: hands down a bigger issue the Falcons. But. I have seen one neo shaft failure. The Falcon V1 & V2 have a way to solve that issue.
Electrical Motor/controller: If you include the JST connector and encoder leads. We have more failures with the Neos. Especially since we use a lot more Falcons.
. They’ve given us a bit of anxiety over the years because the failure modes only happen in the context of a mechanism running at full operation.