Motor power: volts or watts?

I am using SDC2130.

I've looked through the manual (dev.roboteq.com/dev1/index.php/docman/mo...ers-user-manual/file) quite thoroughly, but there is one thing which is still not exactly clear to me.

The value throughout the manual referred to as "motor power": is it the voltage applied to a motor or the actual electric power (voltage*current) on the motor? I've found no clear statement in the manual specifying this.

Could you please clarify this?

The motor power is the percentage of power applied across the motor output. If your supply going into the controller is say 12V, 10A, and your motor command is is +500. That would be 50% of the motor output. So the motor voltage is at 6V and the current that the motor is drawing is also around 6A.

Thank you for your reply, Griffin.
Strictly speaking, in your example, the electric POWER applied to the motor is 6V*6A = 36Watts. If we assume the maximum power Pmax=12V*10A=120Watts, then it makes it 36/120=30% rather then 50%.

So even though you call it "power", I assume you actually mean VOLTAGE applied to the motor (average voltage after PWM) rather then POWER.

This terminology confuses me a little (I am not a native speaker). I used to think that "power" is electric power (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power) as measured in watts, but it seems like "power" can also mean voltage.

With this motor controller then, if my battery is 12V, and I apply +500 (50%), then the voltage applied to the motor is 12V*50% = 6V, and Amps/Watts have nothing to do with this.

Correct?

The voltage, yes. However you can query the amps of the motor in the run tab under one of the channels boxes in the bottom right corner. If you have a volt meter, you can measure the M+ and M- channel and you should see the voltage change. But if you watch the motor amps that is queried, this too gets adjusted. But remember, your motor while unloaded won't draw out the full current that it is capable of using.