Antweight 4WD wiring

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AndrewC
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Antweight 4WD wiring

Post by AndrewC »

One for those f you that have 4WD bots.

Is it preferable to daisy chain your motor wiring, or to have each motor have its own set of wires? By daisy chaining I mean that, for example, the positive wire of the 2nd motor would come from the positive terminal (or plug) of the first motor rather than being soldered directly to the ESC.

Daisy chaining would reduce weight and clutter, but if the wire to the first motor got cut or pulled out then it would kill the 2nd motor.
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LimaHotel
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Re: Antweight 4WD wiring

Post by LimaHotel »

You mean have your motors in series or parallel?
Parallel. Definitely.
So the way I do it is I wire my esc into the first motor, then piggyback off that motor. It just keeps wires away from the middle of the bot. Basically you wind up with motor 1 fully wired in, then motor 2 piggyback off motor 1
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MarkR
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Re: Antweight 4WD wiring

Post by MarkR »

Yes, wire them in parallel. I also daisy-chain them on 4wd robots, that works well.

But for the weapon systems which use two motors in parallel, I have built Y-leads, because the terminals tend to be on opposite sides of the robot. At least on Stacie and Penelope, where I use two motors facing inwards with a shaft coupler
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AndrewC
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Re: Antweight 4WD wiring

Post by AndrewC »

I definitely mean to have them in parallel. I was asking if people string them together like Luke is describing.

It definitely makes sense to do it. I'm just wondering how worthwhile it is given that I'd lose drive on one side if the wire between the ESC and the first motor gets broken. Having redundant wheels is one of the main advantages of 4WD.
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MarkR
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Re: Antweight 4WD wiring

Post by MarkR »

Depends on the exact location of your ESC in relation to the drive.

On my robot Betsie, the ESC is right in the middle at the front, so the wires to the front motors are very short, then the rear motors just follow on there. If the wire to the front motor gets broken, the ESC is probably also toast.

(NB: This very *nearly* happened at Antweight Open 2019, with "Here's Johnny" when I got "Most Destroyed Robot")
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GeorgeR
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Re: Antweight 4WD wiring

Post by GeorgeR »

I don't see it being a problem, what are the chances of the wire between the esc and the motor actually getting broken? They're not likely to get directly hit given they'll be right in the middle of the robot, and if a wheel takes a hit, the gearboxes break before the electrical connection is damaged.
I've been competing for over three years now, must have had over 200 fights, and I've never had a single wire broken between the esc and motor.
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LimaHotel
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Re: Antweight 4WD wiring

Post by LimaHotel »

Ah, having reread I dunno how I interpreted that as series vs parallel. Apologies.
Bit yeah. I've never had a wire break in a fight, nor been aware of one breaking. Heck, even after frogger got obliterated by Drizzle in that bossfight the electronics still all worked!
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