We only have cim, rs775 and neos in our team, we want to renew our motors this year, what do you think we should prefer, what are the advantages and disadvantages?
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I don’t know anything about motors but can you make more posts like this? I’m a big fan of the graphic and would like more 1v1s with robot parts.
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On paper at least, the difference is pretty clear
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I can come up with more content like this before the season when we are missing a lot of parts. 
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Yes, I have examined them, but I think more torque will go more power from the battery, and we can attach the vortex directly to the shaft, there are many different combinations for the intake or shooter. frankly, we wonder how more experienced teams than us use it.
The Kraken appears to be a much more performant motor, with an integrated motor controller. Someone else will need to do the comparison in size with this versus a vortex and the control hat added to the vortex.
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I think you’re comparing the wrong things here. I’d recommend choosing either the Kraken x60 or the NEO Vortex, rather than the Kraken x44.
The x60 is basically the same price as the x44 but fits more easily into the FRC COTS ecosystem with its 2" bolt circle.
We’ve used both Krakens and Vortexes. Both work fine in most applications. Wouldn’t recommend Vortexes in the SDS Mk4i swerve modules. We also still use NEOs and I don’t think you’re going to see huge gains in performance by upgrading from those.
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It depends, we haven’t seen the efficiency curves for the X44s yet so they might be better at peak efficiency, but just comparing Stall Amps per Torque Nm at stall (a metric that I just made up but seems to be a decent comparison), does seem to be consistent with your assumption.
Vortex at Stall: ~58.6 Amps / 1 N-m Torque
Kraken X44 at Stall: ~67.9 Amps / 1 N-m Torque
Incidentally, the Kraken X60 is: ~51.6 Amps / 1 N-m Torque at stall
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We will definitely buy the kraken x60 this season, we just discussed among ourselves that these engines will perform better in tasks such as intake and shooter, and I thought we could get better information if I opened a topic. according to your suggestion, is it better to use x60 in shooter and intake?
At least as far as efficiency goes. There are other considerations besides efficiency of course, including weight, desired RPM, necessary gearing (which also affects weight), and space.
On our robot this year we mainly used Kraken X60s but we still utilized NEO 550s in two spots where we needed low-speed+high torque because it’s easier and lighter to put a planetary gearbox with a larger reduction on a NEO550 than it is to put a Kraken with a smaller reduction in at least some cases. Basically if you have to put a reduction on something anyways, it’s often easier to use a smaller motor and just reduce it more.
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You are saying that using neo550 / neo with planetary gearbox can be a better choice than vortex or x44, right? We have neo and planetary gearboxes, we can add neo550 to our purchase list for such situations, thank you very much, we never thought of using neo550 in this way, we were staying away because of low torque, until we learned this.
I think the main benefit of the x44 is the slightly smaller form factor and weight savings over the x60. For most FRC teams (including mine) that isn’t going to result in any significant competitive gain. Teams have been using x60’s on both shooters and intakes for 2 years now and they have worked just fine. In 2 years or so when the COTS ecosystem has evolved to better incorporate this motor, I think you’ll see more benefit to using them over the x60 than there is right now.
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In certain situations, yes, though it’s also worth considering that CTRE released their Minion motor today as well which seems to be comparable to the NEO550, but hopefully without some of the NEOs drawbacks. WCP has also hinted at (what I’m assuming is) a possible soon-to-be-announced gearbox solution which may change the math on some of this too.
My team has kept NEO550s in our inventory for limited applications for the last few years in spite of using mainly Falcons500s/Kraken X60s, but may consider switching to a combination of Kraken X44s and Minions depending on what else gets released for them in the coming weeks. If WCP comes out with a VersaPlanetary-sized gearbox solution that supports these new motors natively, I’d definitely be tempted to go that route and ditch REV/VEX for motors and gearboxes.
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Torque of the motor doesn’t matter, because you’ll put a gearbox on it either way. If a motor is 6000rpm free speed, it’ll get 20% less torque per amp than a 5000rpm motor.
But, if you gear it down to 5000rpm, the motors will have the same torque per amp at the output and the same free speed. Now, if a motor is double the speed of a other motor, you will need to factor in the cost of additional gearing, but smaller differences don’t usually matter.
Instead, look at peak power and efficiency, because those will drive power loss (heat) even at lower currents. Gear down a Vortex or NEO550 to the same speed as a Kraken X60, and for the same output torque, the X60 will produce less heat than either. Additionally larger motors have more thermal mass, reducing the odds of a burnout.
In general, if you can fit a larger motor in your design, you should. Weight savings from smaller motors aren’t really worth it because you’re always going to leave performance on the table and rack up more heat and thermal failures. Once you’re comfortable with designing things and selecting motors, then it’s a good time to revisit the smaller ones.
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One subtler difference I would pay attention to is the details other than the motor specifications.
A pro and con of CTRE (Krakens) is that they have a really good software ecosystem. It is a lot more robust regarding complex control requests (it can handle PID loops on the controller vs having to run them yourself on the roborio). Also, if you use swerve drive, they have a really simple way to generate the code for the whole drive subsystem. You can also gain more special stuff if you use the CANivore, but that locks you down to basically only using CTRE CAN-FD components (but this is optional, too).
Now, from an electronics perspective. My team has used Sparkmaxes and Neos in the past (not Vortex/Sparkflex) and has had many issues with weird CAN behavior and controllers dying on us. While this is likely skill issues on our part, we have also not had any CTRE motors have any problems. Also, from a general consensus on what I have seen here, the SPARK Flex has had many issues (I heard some stuff about grounding to the housing, etc.) compared to only having some small issues of too high current limits that were quickly fixed in a firmware update for Kraken x60s.
Also, for prototyping, because of the way the accompanying apps to update the firmware work, the REV products do not require a full electronics setup to run (only power), whereas the CTRE product needs everything to run. However, I also find that the CTRE app is a lot easier to use to find and assign IDs and is more consistent with picking up devices.
So TL;DR, I would look beyond just the stats of the motors themselves but look at the accompanying APIs, apps, and reliability to weigh your choice.
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According to all you have said, using CTRE Krakens seems more advantageous both in motor specs and software and API.
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Can we use neo and spark max while using canivore? By connecting it to the can bus line in Roborio, of course.
Sorry for not making that clear; of course you can. One more thing that I forgot to mention that is also an advantage of using a CANivore is that you have an additional CAN loop that can fail separately without destroying the other CAN loop (i.e., segregate the two vendors for two different loops).
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Then if we buy kraken it will be very advantageous to use it canivore
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