What did you do when you had this problem with the motor controller before?
ya, my bots an outdoor one too, but I think all terrain is more fitted for it. Also, my receiver is right next to the motors (which are metal) so I thought that would be a problem. Is there anyway I can isolate the reciever from the rest of the bot to control this. mhmmm 
There maybe some materials avalible for this,but im not sure what.
couldn’t you just move the receiver away from the motors?
i am planning on making a large antanaea, and moving the reciever as far from the motors as possible. i am also podering the idea of making the metal of the bot an anttaneae some how
A better idea would be to make the metal chassis a good solid common ground, and electrically isolate your antenna from it. That way, your chassis becomes a counterpoise for the antenna, which may well improve your reception dramatically (or it may not, depending on how you have it configured right now).
In general, you want all of your metal chassis pieces to be at ground potential and connected together, electrically. The antenna should be separated from this ground plane (the receiver is almost certainly using the electrical ground as its RF ground as well), and preferably elevated up and away from it and any RFI-producing components therein. Make sure that you have good solid electrical and chassis grounds on your components, to help eliminate spurious signals that may cause interference with RF and/or data signals.
IMPORTANT notes regarding chassis grounds: When making good solid chassis grounds, double check and make absolutely sure that the tie-point you are attaching to the chassis ground is actually at ground potential. Also it’s no fun trying to track down a short, only to eventually discover that one of your mounting bolts is bridging a trace on the bottom side of a board to your chassis ground.
thats all good, if I had a metal chassis 
Most of my robot’s chassis is Lexan 
however, I am going to isolate the reciever with that “flotation rubber stuff” that came in the package and I will route the antenna outside the chassis as planned.
This is definitely not normal operation. If Sabertooth is getting a good RX signal the response should be buttery smooth. Plus, the sabertooth and scorpion lines of motor drivers are quite different, so if they’re both doing the same thing, its almost certainly the input. Have you tried it with a different RX? I’d suspect a cracked crystal, a broken antenna wire, or something along those lines. I’ve had this happen especially with combat robots after they take a good hit.
Impossible. The Hitec RC controller I was using was just purchase a week ago (laser 6) and I get the same response with my older Laser 4. I’ve always had this happen to me, know one ever seems to know the solution ( I sure don’t). Even isolating the reciever from the robot’s other electronics/ mechanics does the same thing. The only time it dosent do this is when im running the wheels off the ground, but as soon as it drives on a surface, it acts up. Im out of ideas 
That suggests that as soon as your motors draw any appreciable current the problem shows up. What if you suspend the robot and just put a friction load on the moving track, does it start jittering then?
Im not sure, i’ll have to try that, but if this is causing this why and how can I fix it? This used to happen with other gearhead motors I had as well… 
Do the motors have decoupling caps on them?
no
might be a good thing to try. use the (3) cap method, one between the leads, and one from each lead to a common point on the motor case. anything from 0.01uF to 0.1uF ceramic or poly/film should be fine.
do you have a radio shack or r/c car hobby store locally?
yes, over hear the name changed to “the source by circuit city”. What canadian came up with this? anyways, what do these do?
in this application they provide a low-impedance shunt (sort of a short) for high frequency electrical noise while having little to no effect on DC or the relatively low frequency PWM signals used to control the motor. another way to look at it is it is a noise filter. when the motor is under load it draws more current and therfore the brushes arc more as they commutate. that arc is creating electrical noise in the RF spectrum. you might get by with just putting 1 cap across the motor leads, it should have some effect. more common though includes an additional cap from each power lead to the motor case itself (meaning a total of 3 caps are used.) you need to be a little careful soldering to the motor case because too much heat for too long can damage most motors. seems to me this information was in another thread within the last few months… maybe search for capacitor?
here is a pic of a small r/c plane motor with the 3 caps installed.
http://www.iroquois.free-online.co.uk/supp3.jpg
Thanks a lot Eddie, come to think of it, I do remember this in another thread a while back. I going to go ahead and try 3 Caps. Might as well use 3 while Im soldering that thing - its time consuming for me
thanks,
Joe, you are using sprockets as the chassis supporting mechanical component. Sprockets are not suitable for supporting the chassis off the ground. They are designed specifically to keep the tension of the track system consistant as the track links traverse around the sprocket. If you try to use sprockets to support the chassis you get the familure whump, whump, whump sound as it moves. -and yes it’s a bumpy ride!
Please take a few minutes to check out the assembly guide for our TriTrack chassis.
lynxmotion.com/images/html/build115.htm
It will show you one method of achieving the smooth ride you are looking for. This method does not have any suspension, but will provide a very smooth ride on a smooth serface. The drawback is it transfers any bumps on an iregular surface like gravel to the chassis. So I guess you have to pick your prefered area to use the bot and build for it. The best solution is to have idlers with suspension for a smooth ride on any surface. The size of the TriTrack chassis is a little small to try and build a suspension into it. We will try to make a fully compliant suspension for our larger rovers that will use the 3" wide tracks. It’s just a vague image in my head at this point.
yes I have 2 hex standoffs in the middle of the track supporting it up, but I dont have those little white rolly things on them. I am looking around for some small plastic tubing to put around them. Anyways, this bot is strictly an outdoor bot prototype for Military/SWAT tactical missions (science fair, nothing serious). Drove the bot on carpet to simulate outdoor terriane and it was much smoother. I still have to solder caps on the motor terminals and hopefully these little nagging projects will get done and the bot will run like a true robot.
Built in Canada with Lynxmotion parts! 
I based my comments on the drawings. So when are you going to post the pictures of the real bot? We wanna see um.
yea, still waiting on that digital camera to ship
I’ll see if I can get some shots of it with my Brother in Laws cam 