Motor Testing Best Practices

When and how to properly test motors

This is not a guide on how to use Phoenix Tuner X. That can be found here.

Testing motors is critical to making a reliable, robust robot--as they often get damaged, come with defects, and have issues with additions such as gearboxes.

Start of the year:

Firstly, all motors for use during the season should be tested during off season and catalogued in an inventory spreadsheet, as well as labeled with the date of testing. If they do not work, make sure that is properly indicated on the motor. Things go quickly in build season, so making sure that all motors are ready can save a lot of time.

Additionally, not all new motors work. Some come with defects, so test them upon arrival.

Preparing for build season:

Before and as construction on the robot begins, it is electrical's job to set aside properly working and tested motors to be installed. This involves immediately setting aside 8 motors for swerve modules (and by set aside I mean label and place in a bin for that subsystem). Fabrication students will not check that the motor is good, so making their jobs easy will ensure that they don't mess things up (otherwise they will, trust me).

As much of this that can be done during off-season should be done during off-season.

Usual motor allotments before build season:

• 8 motors for master swerve set

• ~4 motors for backup swerve modules

• ~10 motors for superstructure (rarely will we actually need nearly this many)

• ~10 motors for backup superstructure

• ~5 extra motors (ex. backup backup. Trust me, it has come to these before)

Gearboxes: once the design of the robot is being finalized, it is electrical's job to construct and affix gearboxes to motors based on what is needed. TEST THE MOTOR AGAIN AFTER THE GEARBOX IS ADDED (and, of course, relabel testing date and add label for what the motor's role on the robot is). So many issues can occur if the gearbox is not constructed properly, and catching them before they are integrated into the robot saves a lot of time.

Backup motors: Backup motors are necessary so that if a motor gets damaged (or a subsystem containing that motor gets damaged) it can be quickly replaced and trusted to work. As explained here, intervals between matches are short and time is of the essence, so it is super important to make pit crew's job as easy as possible if something on the robot fails. The usual method is one backup motor for every motor on the robot, (minus swerves) along with motors integrated into backup subsystems. For our 2025 season, for example, we had (ALL LABELED):

• Two backup motors with {3,3} gearboxes on them for our two elevator motors

• One backup {9} motor for our wrist motor

• One backup motor for our intake motor (on the mitt)

• Four backup motors integrated into two backup swerve modules (since it is really hard to swap a motor on a swerve, and the fact that if the motor manages to get damaged the swerve is probably damaged too, we would replace the module not the motor)

• One backup {9} motor on our replacement wrist

• One backup motor on our replacement mitt (by mitt I mean our end-effector, if anyone reads this far enough into the future to not know the team's 2025 robot)

• And all of our leftover working motors (just in case. you really never know. cough cough 2024 season)

Critically, all of these must be tested before comp (and labeled!!!!). You don't want to swap to a motor for your next match only to find out the gearbox was not constructed quite right.

Remember, plan as if everything that can go wrong will go wrong. (It has happened before)