Our class has recently been challenged to play soccer with VEX robots. I’m looking for tips and tricks to keep our motors under temperature for the 7 minutes that the matches will last.
I was thinking of using red motors at a lower speed with a 4 motor drivetrain, and alternating which motors are used to keep them both cool.
Soccer balls are regulation.
if you make the drive strong enough it will be able to drive indefinitely until the battery dies. On 4 motors, even running 200 rpm cartridges on any size wheels will probably be strong enough, even if the robots are pushing each other a lot. using 100 rpm cartridges would be even stronger, but might be slower than desired for your purposes.
You could probably get away with going faster than 200 rpm even, as long as you limit the amount of pushing and shoving you do.
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turn a can of pressurized air upside down and spray your motors. it will turn into ice cold freon and cool down you motors significantly.
8 motor pushbot - That is also an aluminum cube. Just don’t make a robot too heavy, have compressed air on hand to cool it off.
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while the liquid that comes out of these cans (not freon) is very cold, it does very little to actually cool the motors. That is because the actual motor and circuitry is within the insulating plastic casing, and spraying air on that will not help lower the temperature of the motor itself very much.
Generally speaking, if you find your motors overheating, the correct way to fix it is to solve the cause of the overheating, not try to cool the motors back down.
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I would recommend screw joints for your wheels as well, they help reduce friction. Also bearing flats, etc etc.
Good build quality reduces friction, which then allows your drive to last longer without burnout.
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Using just 4 motors on a 200rpm direct drive should be fine for at least 7 minutes. Depending on how heavy the robots will be, you may or may not have to add 2 more motors (one on each side, you can chain or gear them together).
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