My team is terrified of frying our cortex with a shorted motor so we just use a few more y-cables and avoid ports 1 and 10 at all costs. XD
Thoughts?
I also do not use ports 1 and 10; once the mc breaks on those ports, they are unusable.
Aren’t they used for flashlights and other accessories disregarding motors?
No. You can plug a motor into the ports. Ports 1 and 10 are just ports with built-in motor controllers. The problem with that is if the motor controller breaks then the ports are useless. You can’t open the shell of the cortex and fix it because that counts as modifying electronics. That’s the main reason we stopped using ports 1 and 10.
My ports blew the night before a I comp and I had no motor controllers
I do. I have them running low-stress motors though.
I tried inserting the two prong 393 motors into them but they slip out the fasteners. How do you guys secure them on the Cortex?
duct tape. electrical tape. ziptie tape.
???
not tape. zipties.
It was supposed to be comedic. Obviously nobody thought it was funny, though.
There’s no reason not to use ports 1 and 10. We use them. There isn’t any inherent danger in using them, and while it is possible to blow the motor output/control circuit from a motor short, it is unlikely if you exercise reasonable care. If you do happen to burn out either port 1 or 10, then stop using the disabled port. That’s it.
The only other caveat I have is this: Reportedly, the response curve is slightly different for the integrated motor control ports (1 and 10) than it is for the external MC29 devices. So, if you need two ports for, say, left and right on a chassis, lift, or arm, use port 1 for one and port 10 for the other.
With that said, I haven’t seen any particular difference in the motor control when we’ve been forced (due to tournament day rewiring) to use the integrated ports on one side of a device and the external controllers on the other. So, even though it’s recommended to have balanced types across two sides of a device, it probably doesn’t matter.
I liked “ziptie tape.”
I would never use ports 1 and 10. One of our motors stopped working the night before our competition because it was in one of those ports.
I was under the impression that it could blow the entire cortex is that wrong? If so then I guess a short would just mean going back to not using the ports anymore and have pretty much no effect on our performance.
aw dang, I have a mogo lift with two motors on a 1:5 ratio in ports 1 and 10. Are they in any danger?
They shouldn’t be.
My team uses them. It is definitely fine to use them. We have used them for the past couple of years without any problems
I have never known of the cortex being damaged beyond use from port 1 or 10 being blown. I suppose it could happen, but it could just as easily happen from improper wiring on any other port on the device.
These ports work perfectly fine. They are currently for my goal lift. I’ve used all the ports for 6 years. As long as you don’t short the motor, by wiring safely, there is no risk. You could hurt your cortex by somehow shorting the key too, but no one tells you to stop using keys…
We use 1,2,9 and 10 for our drive, we’ve done that every year and have never had any problems. We had a cortex earlier this year where ports 1 and 10 stopped working but that was our oldest one, I don’t see any risk to it.