I recently completed a small robot using a cheap two wheeled kit I picked up on Amazon, a raspberry Pi and an L293D for the driver. I only needed forward and backward so PWM was not used in this project. The robot navigates nicely using some HC-SR04s mounted across the front, or I can switch over to manual mode and control it with a wireless keyboard. It’s a fun little robot and I enjoy setting it loose in my living room but now I have aspirations to build something bigger. I’m hoping to come up with a good design for some DIY tank treads, perhaps made from old tires and some roller chain but I have yet to settle on a DC motor I like. I would prefer torque over speed because I want this new robot to be somewhat all-terrain but I’m hoping to not end up with two $300 motors. I had the thought of picking up a pair of cordless drills and mounting those in my chassis and I might still do that, I’m just wondering if anybody knows of an equivalent at roughly the same price range that doesn’t have a step one of “Tear the drill apart, now tear the other one apart” Does anybody have any ideas or suggestions or should I just pick up a couple of drills and start hacking?
Take a look at the following categories:
robotshop.com/en/gears-belts … hains.html
Ex: robotshop.com/en/lynxmotion- … RB-Lyn-170 (plus sprockets etc)
robotshop.com/en/gear-motors.html
Ex: robotshop.com/en/ghm-13-spur … =RB-Hsi-07
I like where you’re going with this but I feel like those parts are a little too small for what I want to be able to do. I’m also planning on staying away from plastic, leaning more toward an aluminum or steel chassis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRN2iQVsVls
Something more like this, perhaps not quite as big… What kind of motors do you think those are? Because that’s what I want lol
The motors used in the video don’t really seem to have any markings on them at all - hard to tell. Consider sending a private message to the person who posted the video.
The largest motors we carry are the CIM:
robotshop.com/en/banebots-fi … motor.html
You’ll need a gearbox:
Ex: robotshop.com/en/banebots-p8 … box-4.html
Ex: robotshop.com/en/toughbox-na … motor.html
Fill in the values you know here to get an idea of the specs for the motor you’ll need:
robotshop.com/blog/en/drive- … -tool-9698
I found out, after following your recommendation that this video was posted by another company selling robots and robot accessories 
I think it’s probably likely that they used parts found on their own online store. I also note that it doesn’t appear anybody has responded to anybodies questions or comments on that video. The fact that whoever posted the video doesn’t have time to respond to anybody is somewhat irritating to me, it tells me that the point of the video was purely commercial.
Anyway, I’m looking at 24v DC motors, currently at Amazon, but obviously I’m going to go with the lowest cost / shipping cost I can find on whatever motor I decide on, excluding anything shipping from china because I most certainly do not have the patience it requires to wait an entire month for a package to ship. Though, a fifteen pound motor with free shipping would be difficult to say no to. Anyway, I’m assuming that I can still drive a 24v DC motor with an H-bridge using an L293D or some similar variant. As I prefer to make things myself when I can rather than going and buying a pre-built H-bridge, does anybody have recommendations on additional circuitry that I should use with an L293D so that big heavy DC motors don’t fry something when they start/stop and reverse direction?
Thanks.
An L293 can normally provide around 2A continuous, and it’s almost guaranteed that larger motors will consume a multiple of this. When you think about using an L298, you’re thinking the robot will weight around 500g.
I’m not totally understanding what you’re saying. From what I can tell, the L293 and L298 seem to both handle the same voltage and aperage range, so what makes one better than the other? Also, I’m assuming I will still have to add more circuitry to the chip to handle EMF protection but I haven’t found a useful schematic just yet for that. I will be building my own motor driver rather than buying one of these overpriced pre-built versions of the same thing. So if it’s your practice to direct people to your products and dodge answering questions I’ll go find another forum.
The motors used on that tracked vehicle are massive and would consume very high current (easily 50-100 Amps each). The L298 can provide around 2A, so it’s not even remotely in the right ballpark.
Before you select a motor controller, you need to find the motors you want to use. The CIM motor we suggested in the previous reply consumes around 50A continuously, so you’ll need a high current motor controller:
robotshop.com/en/high-power- … llers.html
Ex: robotshop.com/en/osmc-160a-1 … =RB-Rop-06
Okay. I’m not going to buy anything here.
Ever.
I hope they are paying you well.