New FRC motors

[Yoav_rein]

Can someone please make a list of pros and cons about the new FRC motors? It’ll help me a lot (Kraken X60 & Neo Vortex)

[Skyehawk]

Pros and cons are use case specific, big numbers do not mean better, cost packaging and such are all different for different teams and robot designs. This list is likely something you will need to develop yourself for your own applications. Being able to parse through info and weigh options based on your design requirements is a valuable skill.

Fwiw here are the links

Announcing Kraken X60 powered by Talon FX!

You’re right, good point. I edited my results table above. The conclusions drawn by SndMndBdy, about FOC’s effect on total travel time and total energy usage, seem to stand.

https://www.chiefdelphi.com/t/rev-robotics-2023-24-product-releases-updates/442216/50?u=skyehawk

Brushless Motor Comparison

I’m working on some new additions to my design calculator, including a motor curve generator. It’s not quite ready to go live yet, but with the announcement of the new brushless motor options for 2024 I wanted to show the comparison between them. I am limiting these plots at 80 Amps in order to focus on the section of the curves that is relevant for FRC. Slightly different from what you may have seen previously, these curves have the motor torque on the x-axis instead of the speed. This is done…

[chrisrin]

If you’re looking for a TL/DR, I think Joe Johnson’s comments here in the Kraken discussion make a lot of sense. In a nutshell, the POV is the new motors make little difference unless you’re one of the truly top top performing teams.

Things like good strategic design decisions with team constraints in mind, iteratively refined game piece handling mechanism designs, effective driver practice, and programming sophistication including autonomous performance will continue to be WAY WAY more important for nearly all teams than the old Neos vs. New Neos and Krakens thing.

[thatnameistaken]

I would argue that actually having a readily available Talon FX motor and the packaging options of the Vortex aren’t worth brushing off.

There’s more to these motors than just power.

[nuttle]

They both look really good – hopefully, there will be no major QC issues or unexpected failings that come to light once these are in widespread use.

[AdamF]

I think the biggest difference between the Kraken and The Neo Vortex ( and regular Neos) motors outside of form factor is just their philosophy on reliability vs modularity. To preface, I’m not saying the Neo Vortex or Neos are not reliable/less reliable. From a reliability engineering standpoint, modularity adds more parts/complexity which can reduce reliability.

The Kraken is an all in one unit, so if one component is damaged–motor, motor controller, shaft-- then the whole unit is broken. But with less/more integrated parts, it is less likely for this to happen. This is probably best for teams that have more budget for having full sets of spare parts and overall reliability is more important to them

For the Neo Vortex, the inverse is true. Break the motor, shaft, or motor controller, and you can just swap it out. But having these non-permanently liked components can make them more likely to fail. This is probably best for teams with less budget and having as many spares as they can get is more important. They may only be able to have 1 or 2 spare krakens, vs with Neo Vortexes (Vortices?) they may able to have 2 spare motor controllers, 4 motors, and a few shafts.