This friday our V5 came in (just before we went to our tournament) We are going to be using V5 in our next tournament. We will be the only bot using V5 in our team. We have 2 kits and a total of 10 smart motors. We have access to Turbo and High Torque gearing. I was wondering what I should keep in mind while implementing the V5 system into our bot (best practices and whatnot).
Our team has a catapult bot with a rubber band shooter. Our current plan is a four motor drive running the standard 200rpm gearset. We will run a 6 wheel drive with the middle wheel chained to the two outside wheels. Two motors will be dedicated to catapult in 200rpm mode (high torque gearset if we can) . It is to be connected to a pinion gear using a 1/8 inch axle.
Our intake is composed of a single 200rpm motor connected to a 36t gear geared to a pinion gear driving a vertical intake. The intake has three sprockets connected to it which lift the ball up.
We are planning an “intake bar” which is composed of a single motor carrying a large U shaped bar which we can use to scoop balls towards our intake as well as flip caps / block allinace platforms. We are planning to use a 200rpm motor geared directly into the bar.
Keeping all these things in mind, what are some of the things that we should keep in mind while implementing V5? I’ve heard horror stories of batteries dying out, motors overheating(relevant especially in tropical Hawaii), and micro controllers malfunctioning.
All advice is appreciated, thanks for reading
One thing is that the motor mounts themselves are larger. You can’t put them on the sides of C-channels anymore. For that matter, the whole motor is significantly bulkier, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that.
VCS can do some cool things, but it’s kind of a pain to work with. Make sure you constantly save your work.
Additionally, the battery issues seem to be fixed if you update to the latest firmware.
If you were using ROBOTC* for programming on Cortex, you will need to change coding environments to work with V5. I’d encourage you to look at the available options. I’m obviously a little bit biased towards the one that I’ve been helping with (RMS), but there are currently distinct advantages and disadvantages for each coding environment.
As for must-know information on V5, the only thing to really be sure of is make sure you update the robot’s firmware immediately before doing anything at all with it. Don’t even plug the battery in to charge before firing up the system and updating the firmware.
I had thought MathWorks had put out a new product for V5. Was it just an update to an existing product? If I remember right PROS 3 is radically different from PROS 2 and uses different tools. Either way, updated my previous to better reflect what I had intended to say.
Echoing @creatorthomas ,it’s a good thing to check, but I’m not so sure it’s so important right now. Our brains arrived a couple weeks ago with 1.0.2 already on them, so there was nothing to update. I suspect that is true of the entire new batch being shipped out.
VEXos Version 1.0.3 has just been released. Changes for this update include:
- More battery stability improvements
- Added battery and radio connection events to brain log
- Fixed controller lockup issue
- Added ability to plug field cable into partner controller for field control
- Added controller dashboard screen
- Improved handling of temporary field disconnects
- Added feature that turns the Radio's LEDs green when field connection is detected and user program is running
- No longer allow BLE radio to be used with field switch connected
- Fixed bug that caused brain screen to go black
- Other miscellaneous bug fixes
For more information, visit: https://www.vexrobotics.com/vexedr/products/firmware
The “firmware update” option inside Robot Mesh Studio is working.