Hey all, we are currently developing our robot and we are running into issues with having enough motors. We want to use more NEO’s than we can fit on our PDP. At the same time, I know teams like the Cheesy Poofs have over 8 Falcon 500s on their robot and from my research, those seem to be the equivalent of NEO’s (but stronger). How do those teams hav so many motors on their robot? My current guess is that they might have those hooked up to the 8 smaller ports on the PDP alongside the 8 larger ones but that seems like it should drastically reduce the power/strength of their motors.
The large slots let you use a 40A breaker, the small slots let you use a 30A breaker…it’s not a drastic reduction in the power you can get out of the motor. And most mechanisms don’t really need much power, besides drivetrain, climbing, and fast moving arms/elevators.
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I see, I misunderstood and thought the small ports could only take 20A which seems like it’ll make a large difference. Thanks for the fast reply!
The new Rev PDB can take up to twenty 40A breakers 
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yeah, and it’s also out of stock at Rev.
You could legally run 20 neos on 40A breakers this season, if you wanted to. This would require the new PDH from Rev. This isn’t necessarily a good idea, but its allowed. If you have current control enabled and understand the limitations of you Battery and main breaker, you can do that. If you don’t understand those kinds of things…don’t run 20 40A breakers.
On the CTRE PDP (which is the one you sound like you are using) you can use 16 Neos. I don’t see anything in the rules against using these 40A breakers in the smaller slots, so if you wanted 16 40A slots, I think you can do that. Same caution as before, because your battery/main breaker cannot run all those motors at full power at once.
In reality, you can absolutely run a Neo on a 30A, or 20A breaker in power power applications with issues. This is fine for things like intakes, turrets, adjustable hoods, etc. You also may consider a Neo 550 for these lower power applications, as they are smaller/lighter.
Hope that helps.
Luckily, we just got it yesterday 
Didn’t know it could take that. I guess we are good! Thanks for all the help guys!
We currently are doing that with the 550s but they don’t have enough torque for some of our applications which is why I wanted to try to get extra NEO’s on.
I am so glad we pre-ordered the whole REV control system. We’re running 14 Falcons this year and we’ll need all those lovely 40A circuits.
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but how are you not going to run out of battery mid-match?
This is actually no longer accurate. According to the Q&A, the smaller slots can be used with Rev’s 40A ATO breakers, which makes the old PDP and the new PDH much more equivalent.
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Thanks for the update.
By not running all of them all the time. Two are running the climber, eight on the drive (swerve) which means that four are for steering. The others are running the intake, indexer, and shooter (flywheel) so they all run intermittently and not at the same time. We should be fine, but will very much need new batteries after every match.
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A motor will only draw as much current as demanded to do the job. Because brushless is much more efficient the NEO will actually draw less current than a much smaller brushed motor doing the same work. In this case some of those NEOs are being used to steer and thus have a low load and will consume less energy that something like a Bag motor or 775 doing the same work (assuming all of the motors have the proper gear ratio for their specifications and application). So yeah the more NEOs you substitute for brushed motors the longer the battery will last.
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You can run them all, all the time, as long as you’re not running all of them at 40+A all the time. Better would be:
By not running all of them all the way all the time.
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Of course, but I had thought that was a given, with four being steering motors and more running the intake and indexer. No real reason for them all to draw 40A at the same time.
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