During our previous competition, our robot began to stop moving completely. I’ve been told that it was overheating engines, but it was our first match of the day and we didn’t use it beforehand. Is there anything wrong? I also named the robot on RobotC.
Potato,
It sounds like you are tripping the breakers in your motors. This is normal behavior for VEX motors if they are overloaded.
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.
You can reduce the risk of tripping drive breakers a few ways:
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
Let me know if you have any further questions,
Charles