Posted by Kyle.
Student on team #45, Technokats, from Kokomo High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.
Posted on 11/6/2000 9:33 AM MST
Hey
Can any one tell me why the motors are 4 times slower when they are hooked up to the speed controllers and not the spikes.
thanks
kyle
Posted by Joe Johnson. [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]
Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.
Posted on 11/6/2000 11:04 AM MST
In Reply to: Questions… posted by Kyle on 11/6/2000 9:33 AM MST:
Question:
Can any one tell me why the motors are 4 times slower when they are hooked up to the speed controllers and not the spikes.
Answer:
This should not be the case. The Victors and the Spikes should both provide essentially the same voltage to the motors so they should run at the same speed.
One possibility is that you have the Throttle Wheel turned down on the Victors.
The ‘Wheel’ of the left most joystick of a joystick pair (i.e. Joystick #1 and Joystick #3) sets the Throttle for that pair of joysticks. If the joystick is controlling a Victor (i.e. Joysticks #1 and #2), then the max travel of the joystick only provides a fraction of the full range of voltage to the motor. If the joystick is controlling a Spike (i.e. Joystick #3 and #4) then the throttle essentially changes the deadband for the joystick.
I believe that this throttle feature is the reason several teams are believe that they have a problem with their Victors.
Here is Joe’s Recommendations for setting your Victors & Trims:
#1 Reset the Victors back to standard calibration if you have re-calibrated them. (see manual from innovationfirst.com for details)
#2 Put the Throttle Wheel to Full Forward
#3 Use the trims on Joysticks 1 and 2 to get the LED’s on Victors 1 and 2 (respectively) to show SOLID ORANGE.
#4 Use Electrical Tape to fix the trim positions
#5 Move the joysticks to Full Forward – Verify that the LED’s on the Victors show GREEN
#6 Move the joysticsk to Full Reverse – Verify that the LED’s on the Victors show RED
#7 Adjust Throttle Wheel to your driver’s liking.
Note: When the Throttle Wheel is not in Full Forward position, the LED’s on the Victors may not turn red or green even though the joystick is in full reverse or full forward position. More importantly, the voltage to the motor will not be full battery voltage. This is actually a nice feature in some cases, but it can be a source of confusion if you don’t understand what is going on.
IN CLOSING, if you use the above method, you should not have to re-calibrate the Victors. I STRONGLY recommend that teams do not re-calibrate the Victors.
Joe J.