Our robot has a normal motor to sprocket intake system, an 18t sprocket and a few rubber bands for compression. Our tray angle is not too steep but for some reason today our motors had trouble collecting 8 cubes which we had gotten easily before our motors would not spin over 110 rpm on a 200 rpm motor. I took some rubber bands off the intake and the moters started spinning at 200 rpm again but could not get more than 4 cubes
any tips are greatly appreciated
Did this drop in effectiveness develop over the course of testing or was it like this at the start of testing?
Somewhat suddenly but mostly gradual. when I got to testing it started off working worse than it had the day before and over the course of the practice it eventually went down to barely working. maybe 10 - 20 minutes of constant driving batteries recharged during this time and I let the motors rest every now and Again
Sounds like some friction got introduced somewhere and the motors are getting hot. Make sure all the axles aren’t bent, can spin freely, etc.
OK I’ll go back through and replace the parts. The intake wheels were squeaking would a small amount of friction stop v5 motors after a while?
No no, it’s not so much parts themselves that cause friction so much as the parts’ alignment. Shafts don’t like to be bound up with too many shear forces on them.
Our first robot had the same problem this year. We figured out that if the intake is placed poorly and requires alot of elastics bands ( 5 or more) then it puts to much pressure on the 200 rpm motors and causes them to work harder, slow down and overheat. We figured out that if we place our intake better and braced it better then we were able to use the 200rpm motors without them overheating very fast, and still have enough tension to pick up 11 cubes. I hope that helps, it’s hard to give any more advice without a picture of your intake.
No thank you that’s good advice by placing them better do you mean closer together over the train or farther back or farther forward? I’ll post a picture
The friction is probably coming from the rubber bands. Move them to the bottom piece of c channel so they aren’t pulling on the top one which is against the axles and possibly bending them.
It looks like the placement of your arms are good, the only other thing I can think of that could be causing your problem is the angle of your tray could be a little to aggressive (not far enough back). If moving your tray angle further back doesn’t fix your problem then then you might have to switch your intake motors to 100 rpm. We switched our motors on our old design and it fixed our problem.
Doesn’t look that steep though. Have you tested the motors? I’ve has faulty motors before that friction is inside the motor itself.
Oh! Are your bearings only attached through one bolt in the center of the bearings?
Yeah I have only one bolt right now was having trouble fitting another one in is it worth it?
this is the only thing I see that could be causing your intakes extra friction.
So I had a very similar issue a while back because I had my bearings bolted down only on the center. It caused the bearings to pivot and push the axels against the metal, on top of that if you have a gear system on there it can push the gears into each other and make them bind. That was my passed experience.