Our team has been using an 8 Falcon mk4 drivetrain with an L2 ratio. We have had a pretty good experience so far, but with the (probable) discontinuation of Falcons and the added capability of the Kraken motor, we are considering switching to using Krakens as our drive motor. From the information I’ve gathered so far, we would need to buy 3-4 more Krakens and 4 pinion sets for about $700-$900 total. We do have some spare Falcons so a motor failure isn’t a huge issue, we are mostly trying to level up our drivetrain. Is this switch worth the money? Is there anything else we would need to purchase? And what are some other ways we can improve our drivetrain?
Krakens deliver a bit more power and are a bit more efficient at high currents. Altogether though, I don’t think the performance difference matters unless your team is really good. I would think more about how to create a reliable robot and fast mechanisms than the performance of my drivetrain. So if you’ve noticed reliability issues you think are attributable Falcons I would consider that a bigger reason to switch than power.
Krakens probably wouldn’t hurt though (I was happy with them this year), and you can always devote the remaining Falcons to mechanisms.
Another thing you should budget is buying the torque wrenches from CTRE or WCP with the Krakens, they should be considered required if you want to be certain of not breaking your motors by overtorquing the terminal screws.
Probably the biggest way you can improve your drivetrain is through programming and driver practice. I would look at top teams code and see how they make their swerve drives easy to control.
Another exercise: watch your past matches and count how much time was spent driving from point A to point B and how much time was spent align/placing/etc. like this: WildStang Robotics Program: Team 111 and 112 Build Blog - 2025 - #366 by DohertyBilly
3 Likes
I don’t think there will be that much of a boost in performance from switching. I’d recommend trying to experiment with different gear ratios and improving software and drive practice. I’d still recommend getting krakens because they’re quite powerful and can be used on other systems but they won’t make a terribly drastic difference afaik.
4 Likes
We are currently using falcons for steer and Krakens for drive. Since the falcons are NLA, we will eventually convert to all Kraken.
There really is not a cost advantage other than we already have the falcons.
1 Like
Thanks for the input! We already have 4 krakens but we are currently using them for mechanisms, which is why I said we’d only buy around 3. Anything extra we could use falcons. This year we found our drivetrain was pretty slow, and I am not sure exactly why (This is my first year in FRC). Which teams would you say have the best swerve code? We will experiment with ratios in the offseason, I believe we are already gonna rebuild our swerve modules for maintenance as we found a few issues.
The teams who code I look at most are 254, 1678, 6328, and 2910, but you also have to but effort into understanding the code and not just copy them blindly because their code can be more complex than is necessary for a less experienced team. Not sure if I have a good recommendation for something more accessible.
Programming things to look into:
- Does limiting the acceleration of your drivetrain make it more controllable?
- Can you have a “slow mode” for finer control with a lower maximum velocity and acceleration?
- Buttons to snap the robot to certain angles (we had one for each coral station).
When I watch your matches, your robot doesn’t seem particularly slow, just looks like you could use more driver practice and the driving is a bit jerky.
2 Likes
We do have a slow mode and set positions to snap the robot to preset areas. I think we could’ve optimized center of gravity better in order to ease the bot’s jerking. We will also prioritize driver practice more heavily. I say we are slower because our lead programmer (who is graduating) said that as we were pushing for a faster autonomous. I am not sure how accurate this actually is or if I took it out of context. Based on this information, I am not sure kraken swerve is worth the increase in price, so we will likely focus on software and practice. Thank you!
1 Like
I think it depends on how old is your falcon 500 motors.
We used a full falcon 500 swerve for all of 2023, and 1 competition in isr #2 in 2024. We did see that over time we will have more and more problems with the motors.
before isr #4 we switched the drive motor to kraken, and while we did see a performance increase, it wasn’t very big.
this year we also had a kraken as the steering motor, and that is because our falcon 500 are old, and because we didn’t have time to test other motors like a neo
1 Like
It is also game specific. In games with full-field cycling (2023, 2024), a higher max speed is important (so lower ratio with more powerful motors), while in half-field or quarter-field games (2019, 2025) better acceleration and mechanism speed are more important (so falcons at a higher ratio with faster mechanisms is probably better).
You can do some drivetrain calculations on recalc, that’d help with making the decision.
There was a great thread a while back that discussed current limits that’s important to note; 3005 seems to do well with vortexes and many other teams use Neos.
1 Like
What are you using for steering encoders and a gyro?
If all your electronics are from CTRE, you can generate swerve drivetrain code using TunerX. This swerve code is more or less what many top teams are using.
1 Like