So our team is planning on doing our first rebuild of the season. We plan on specializing due to lack of motors/power expanders/parts and simply the fact that it is early season, and we will wait till late season to start branching. We have details for either a shooter or a stacker ready depending on which one we choose. Now the question I have is, will it be possible to have a stacking only robot that can high stack (with a DR4B) that is able to park (so probably 4 motor drive) with only 9 to 7 available motors (9 being max since another team will be using the expander and one of the ports on our cortex are out)
Any past experience with motor distribution will be greatly appreciated as this is only our 2nd year in vex and we still have a lot to learn.
uhh not sure if this is tp with your mentions of high stacks but if it is and you’re specializing you can do a six motor base and then 3 for whichever branch you choose (1 intake, 2 for launcher) (1 flipper, 2 lift) and you should be good
@sazrocks The amount of ports might not limit the amount of motors, but it sure does limit the amount of power. and for a lift where all subsystem will most likely be one motor/one port. I feel like this is an unnecessary detail, but if there is some benefit to this please tell other than force distribution over a single axle and such.
@Vyx do you think we will have enough power for an effective DR4B that can still reach the high posts with only 2 motors on it? We had a two motor DR4B last yeah, but that was rough, and with a heavier game object I am not sure it is viable.
Two 393s on a single cortex port will draw as much current as necessary; the same as if each were plugged into individual ports. The issue you are talking about only comes into effect when large amounts of motors are drawing a lot of current simultaneously, pulling down the single battery’s voltage enough to be noticable. Another problem can arise when too much current is put through one of the cortex’s PTCs (one fuse for ports 1-5 and another for ports 2-10), cutting power to those ports until it is reset. With proper management and balancing of loads you can avoid both of these issues; at the very least you will be getting significantly more utility with your 12 motors than with 9.
@sazrocks thank you for making this aware to me! I was under the impression that while each PTC had a limit, the individual ports themselves could only cover a single motor’s power draw and maybe a little more. sadly, 12 motors are not an option to us because even at 7 we are using more motors than most of our other teams (it’s rough)
@Vyx I will look at the video to see the speed of the lift, but I dont think we have the ability to use the same weight saving techniques that he did (splitting c-channels and such) I hate to seemingly cut down all of your proposals guys, but I’m more than happy for more input and just opinions on whether 4 motors are necessary for a lift and if this distribution could be changed.