I’m part of a team and I’m new to posting on a forum but we’ve had this problem two years in a row and it always happens in the later finals matches but we’ll be doing just fine and then the base motors stop working like there’s no power to the motors so we thought the cortex was overheating of lossing power but the arm motors worked just fine and the cortex is brand new we don’t understand what’s happening
It sounds like you are tripping the breakers in your motors.
When you apply load to a DC motor it generates heat - the more load the more heat. The worst case for this is when the motor is stalled (throttle is applied to the motor, but it does not have enough torque to rotate), but even light use will cause the motor to heat up. If unprotected, a motor can overheat and die. VEX 393 motors include a breaker that will trip to protect the motor from overheating. If you trip the breaker, it will reset a few seconds after throttle is no longer applied. The breaker trips when it becomes hot, so if it trips once it will trip very easily until it has time to sit and cool. The motor should return to full performance after the breaker has had time to cool (15-20mins).
Drive motors are especially susceptible to tripping if your robot is heavy or geared to drive fast. Drive motors may also be tripped if your driver gets into “pushing matches” during competition.
Let me know if you have any further questions,
Charles
Not to bug you but I do have another question what would be the best way to solve this problem
You can reduce the risk of tripping drive breakers a few ways:
[LIST]
*]Gearing your robot to drive slower
*]Reducing the weight of your robot
*]Changing driving habits to avoid high acceleration
*]Avoiding “pushing matches” with other robots (or walls) (VERY important)
*]Adding additional motors to your drivetrain
[/LIST]
-Charles