Hi all, I’m new teaching with EXP kits. I know the motors that come with it are 5.5W. Is there any reason to upgrade to 11W motors for projects that need more power? Can the EXP brain handle 11W motors? Is there somewhere I can find specs for the current/voltage/power of the brain and also stall torque and other specs of the 5.5W motors that come with the kit? Thanks.
Welcome to PD+ @Boris_Gokhfeld! I want to start off by saying the 5.5W Smart Motors are intended for everyday-classroom use, while the 11W Smart Motors are more “geared” (pun absolutely intended) towards competition use.
One reason you may want to upgrade from the 5.5W Smart Motors to the 11W Smart Motors is the reason you listed, more power! That and the 11W motors have swappable gear cartridges which allows you to either increase base torque or speed, in addition to further coding capabilities compared to the 5.5W Smart Motor. For an overview of the 11W motors, check out this article from the VEX Library. For information on the 11W Smart Motor performance, check out this article from the VEX Library.
The EXP Brain can in fact handle these 11W Motors as both Smart Motors are powered through the same Smart Cable. For information on the specifications of the 5.5W Smart Motor (such as stall torque and current) as well as a comparison between the 11W and 5.5W, please check out this article from the VEX Library.
As I said at the beginning, the 5.5W Smart Motors are more than capable at handling everyday robotic tasks. The more compact design is more useful in the classroom setting, albeit at a cost to some power. The 11W Smart Motor can be used if you feel you need a more competitive edge.
For the specifications of the EXP Brain, check out this graph below that compares the voltage, ampere hours, and current delivery of the Robot Batteries!
1 Like
@Boris_Gokhfeld I wanted to add another bit of information in regards to the usage of the 11W motor with the EXP Brain. Since the EXP Brain has a lower voltage than the V5 Brain, the EXP Brain will only supply about 5.5W to the 11W motor. While the power output of the two motors is the same on the EXP Brain, the 11W motors still have further coding and gearing capabilities as I have listed above, yet to mention how the 11W motor can house the high strength shafts. Remember that while the 11W motor is able to do more than the 5.5W motor, it sacrifices size in order to do so. Thanks.
Thanks, Matthew. This is really helpful. I did see that the 11W motors can be run at 3 different rpm’s. I was trying to figure out how the Vexcode EXP relates to the specs of the motor. One thing I was confused about is that the rpm range in the code allows you to go from -600 to 600 rpm but it looks based on the specs that the max rpm of the 5.5W motor is only 200 rpm. Was that coding block intended for the 11W motor? Would setting rpm’s to anything over 200 just make it 200? Also, How do the motor motion coding blocks work called “velocity to 50%” and “max torque to 50%”? For example, what would would happen if I set both values to 100%? Normally there is an inverse relationship between motor velocity and torque so not sure how that would work if the code sets them both to 100%. Thanks!
Hello @Boris_Gokhfeld! 
For the first question about the max RPM, it is using the same blocks as the 11W motors. Eventually we plan on making separate devices or options based on whether you have 5.5W or 11W configured in future development.
For torque, setting the % torque sets the ceiling of what the torque will reach. So, at 100% it won’t hinder the motor based on what the torque applied is. If it can apply the 1.6 Nm of force it will. But, if you set it to a lower percent, it will cap at a percentage of 1.6 Nm and use less power.
If you set both torque and velocity to 100% at the same time, it won’t use the max torque the whole time, but the motor will max out the 100% torque when it can.
Let me know if this answered all your questions!
