I know quite a few teams(mine included) with the SDS swerve modules use Kraken X60s for drive motors and Falcon 500s as turn motors, so I figured it would be good to create a thread dedicated to how the new Kraken X44s stack up to the Falcon 500/Kraken X60.
Would moving from the falcons to the X44s be an upgrade? How would it affect the speed and reliability of turning?
What about if a team was running X60s on for turn motors and switched to X44s? Would there be a noticable difference?
While there aren’t modules built specifically to use these new motors yet, once there are, will the reduced form factor play a large role in deciding what to use?
The turning motor doesn’t need to be powerful at all. The MAX Swerve uses the NEO550. You’ll be fine with an X44, you could even use a NEO if you wanted. The difference will be negligible.
Yes because you do not have to deal with vex unreliability.
The x44 has different dynamics so it wants a different gear ratio and feedback controller tuning than the X60, but 400W of power is still more than you need to turn a swerve motor, and the X44 is an 830W peak power motor.
If anything, I’d want to see the new Minion as an option for the turning motor. The only reason teams have falcons and krakens as the turning motors on their swerves right now is because there wasn’t a small CTRE motor option, they’re completely overkill as turning motors.
I haven’t done a deep dive into the specs, but I assume it’s at least as powerful as a Neo550, which is used as a turning motor for MaxSwerve.
Its similar specs to a x44 except the minion has higher resistance (600W is still overkill for spinning a wheel). The main difference between the two is whether you want an integrated controller or not.
There’s space on your swerve drive turning for a Kraken X60. I don’t see any reason to not use a Kraken X60 if you’re looking to upgrade.
Advantages of Kraken X60 over X44:
the same motor as your drive motors so you have spares and less different parts
the motor has already seen a competition season and you know it works well
you get more power if you want it (it’s not really necessary but there’s no loss from it)
your swerve modules already have mounting for Kraken X60s, but not for Kraken X44 s (no 1.375" mounting circle for all swerve modules except for swerve X2(S))
Eliot nailed it. The driver behind the 44 is just what the name suggested. You now have a stupid powerful motor you can stick in a smaller location. It’s all about the packaging. In ANY situation that I can use a kraken I will, just for the increased thermal mass.
While there aren’t modules built specifically to use these new motors yet, once there are, will the reduced form factor play a large role in deciding what to use?
The new swerve X2S from WCP seems to be specifically designed to use the X44’s as steering motors. Swerve X2S – WestCoast Products
Yeah, we didnt get our first krakens till a couple of weeks ago (missed the first run) forcing us to run all falcon on our swerve again this season. Then when we made our B bot this offseason (still before we got krakens); it was Falcon drive, NEO rotate; and was perfectly fine
The only reason we didnt put NEOs on our steering for the main season is wanting everything to be CTRE. If you dont have as many falcons or krakens, a NEO is perfectly capable for the rotation of your module, heck the MAX swerve uses it a a drive motor.
Honestly I think that the best bet is to not use a minion at all and instead use one of the neos u have with a ctre minion(if u want to use ctre’s swerve lib) or just a spark max. You’re basically just wasting money on turn motors if u get krakens for them tbh
Side note, you could also switch to MAXSwerve if you really care about weight, it’s ~2.4 lbs lighter per module compared to MK4i, so you save ~9.6 lbs per robot.
But maybe you should cut weight there, it’s not too much of a sacrifice to switch motors. I don’t think too many teams go right up to the weight limit though, so it’s only really useful for teams who design max weight robots.
2 lbs is still 2 lbs, which is useful even if your robot is not max weight because of (insert all benefits of light robots). For reference, 2lbs is about the weight many robots save in pocketing all of their non-bellypan plates. And this is also 2lbs on the very outside of your robot, which helps decrease MOI quite a bit too
Its not something I’d go out of my way to buy, but if I happened to need motors anyways, might as well go for the lighter and smaller motors, and imo 2lbs always outweighs some extra peak power you can’t use and extra thermal mass you don’t need on swerve turn.
To explain the negative reaction: I don’t think there was a context here of already owning NEOs (also, basic/V1.1 or Vortex?). If you are looking at cost, a Minion is $22 more than a V1.1 and $15 less than a Vortex, which is, even 4 times over, not really that much on a whole swerve drive/robot. If you want a Talon/CTRE motor controller, a Minion + Talon FXS (which I think you meant by “ctre minion”) is $190, vs $195 for the Kraken X44 it’s essentially identical on price (likely some encoder differences, but probably not any impact). The SplineXS shaft of the minion means that you are also sharing hardware with any Krakens you’re using, not insignificant.
If you are looking to save money, using a Spark Max/Thrifty Nova and Neo V1.1 would be cheaper, especially if you are reusing old parts. However, it’s not by a tremendous amount, in context, and you will have a bunch of other differences to deal with vs a Kraken (either) or Minion+Talon FXS solution. It’s completely reasonable to see those differences as worth the cost difference (in either direction), no more a waste of money than anything else in FRC.
Also, I will say that your writing style was noticeable, to say the least; to me, it didn’t really do you any favors in presenting your argument/opinion.
My big thinking is that it is not worth the money for a Kraken X44. The X60’s are significantly more powerful and only $5 extra. I recognize that its way way overkill for turn motors, however by getting the X44’s it means that a team has to standardize on an extra motor. This means that each team has to buy a few extra spares of the X44 when they couldve had 3 spare X60’s and have been better off. So in my opinion the X44s are only good for weight and form factor. If you find that your team is consistently building small or max weight robots, they could be good. However, I just dont know if its worth the money for most teams to try and standardize on this motor.
The minion is similarly expensive, in that its $190, again, Kraken X60s are only $10 more. Beyond form factor and weight its not worth it.
My advice to most teams would be to not use either motor for turning on swerve modules, and instead buy more Krakens. Potentially the other option would be to rock a Neo and a Minion motor controller for the sweet sweet integration with CTRE. Even then id only do that if your team has a significant number of neos in stock (as that is around a $170 set up per motor)
