Would it possible to use a Y cable in order to get two Victors to run at the same time at the exact same speed?
If not how could i do that in LabVIEW?
Sure, you can even buy those Y cables. Of course the motors and transmissions themselves may run at slightly different speeds to don’t expect that to solve all of your problems. It does make life slightly easier for the programmers, though.
I have a couple of them, but what else can i do to get the motors as close as posible to synced?
What we do is measure the speed of each wheel with a tachometer and then adjust the relative speed in software. If you don’t have a tach, you could just use the good old fashion guess-and-try method.
All this assumes you’ve broken in your transmissions and reduced friction in the drive train as much as you can.
The most common use is to stick two CIM’s into a toughbox or CIMple box and run them with two separate victors or jaguars, which are then signaled through a Y cable. While Dale is right in that it won’t solve all the problems, it’s good enough. The CIM’s will run close to the same speed, although it’s almost guaranteed that one will want to go slightly faster than the other if you just had it free spinning. In that case, the slower motor would act as a drag on the faster motor… but the speeds are so close you wouldn’t notice anything. Under load (aka when attached to wheels and driving around), the actual work being done by the motors is going to be a larger drag than any small difference between the motors, and you’ll end up seeing them operate at the same speed, but overall providing about double the torque when compared to running a single motor.
So, if your using the same motors, running in the same direction, you won’t see any real difference, and the difference that is there is typically negligible.
Sorry, I didn’t mention it before but this is not for the drive it is for an elbow like joint driven by two window motors on two victors with no gearbox.
Make sure you calibrate the two Victors using a “Y” cable. That way, they will also be calibrated to the exact same signal. This “should” get the two motors very close in performance.
How do I calibrate the victors?
Page #2 has the details.
Calibration Instructions
The Victor is pre-calibrated to values compatible with an
IFI Control System and re-calibration is not needed.
You can re-calibrate to achieve ‘full forward/reverse’
from your joystick movement if necessary.
NOTE: While in calibration mode, the Victor will
record the max PWM value detected as ‘full forward’,
the min PWM value as ‘full reverse’, and ‘neutral’ will
be the PWM value recorded at the release of the Cal
button. The following steps will guide.
User Calibration:
- Power ON the speed controller.
- Press and hold the Cal button. After a moment, the
LED indicator on the Victor will begin alternating
between RED and GREEN to indicate a cal mode.- While continuing to hold the Cal button, move the
joystick to the maximum and minimum positions.
This can be done in any order and as many times as
desired.- While continuing to hold the Cal button, return the
joystick to center (neutral position).- Release the Cal button.
- A flashing GREEN indicator confirms a successful
calibration.- A flashing RED indicator denotes an unsuccessful
calibration.
An unsuccessful calibration occurs when either:
a) Insufficient joystick travel was detected in forward
and/or reverse.
b) The trim tab is too far from center.
Resetting Calibration to Factory Pre-calibration:- Power OFF the speed controller.
- Press and hold the Cal button.
- While continuing to hold the Cal button, Power ON
the speed controller.- A flashing GREEN indicator denotes calibration is
reset. Release the Cal button.
We used two window motors last year to power a cam for our kicker. Essentially, the motors were sandwiched together with the cam in the middle. We powered ours from two spikes, but never had a problem with any speed differential between the two window motors.
Yeah, what im worried about is the variable speed of the victors because window motors usually only go forward stop reverse and im worried about them changing at different rates and twisting the mount