Dual motor driver

Help & Support Robot Parts
1

Hi all. I am convering a Bruder tracked vehicle to radio control. I am going to use a Tamiya twin motor gearbox and a 6v Niamh battery. I would like to use a Sabertooth twin motor controller since reading up on them, they seem to ofer the control I want, 2 channels, 2 motors mixed or individual etc. My question is a simple one, which Sabertooth model will be best suited to my needs? Many thanks
Moysey

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2

Hi @Moysey and welcome to our forum.

First thing I would do is to calculate the nominal current of your motors. Do you have some specification of the motors?

Based on this, you could choose a suitable Sabretooth motor driver.

3

Hi Igor. Thanks for the reponse. Below are the specs for the twin motor gearbox

  • Motor: FA-130
  • Motor RPM: 12300 (9710 Maximum Efficiency)
  • Motor Voltage: 1.5-3V (1.5V Recommended)
  • Motor Stall Current: 2.1A
  • Free-run current: 150mA
  • Motor Stall torque: 36 g-cm
    I have an existing Arduino motor driver board that a friend made me some years ago but this has now failed and we have lost touch. Hence my need for something similar. The existing battery is a 6v 5 cell 1600Ahr hump which fits very nicely.

All this electrical spec stuff is completely lost on me so I would be very grateful if you could assess and advise me please. Thank you and regards

Moysey

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4

Hi @Moysey ,

Thank you for this specification.

It seems that these motors are really small and have low voltage (below 6VDC) so I don’t think Sabertooth drivers are suitable for this.

You need something smaller, for example this driver board:

Feel free to ask anything else.

5

Hi Igor. Thanks so much for this I’ll do some research to find something UK based and that may be simple to wire up (that’s what I like with the sabertooth) When I find something can I pick your brain as to the suitabiity please?

Moysey

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6

Of course.

You can also find this one in UK:

7

Hi Igor. I should explain, I am not electrical savy in even the remotest form. My soldering skills are ok but imited in fairness. So when I look at the popolu all I see are soldering pads and looking further, I see A1n B1n Ao2 etc and it all means nothing to me. I’m ok with battery plus, battery minus, motor 1, motor 2 but it appears I will need a lot of assistance to use this little controller. That’s why the sabertooth looks so attractive, all connections anotated and wired ready for a receiver. I’m sorry if I come across as a bit thick but I think it’s more fear of the unknown.

8

Hi Igor. I have located the following driver on Ebay. Can you please advise as to its suitability for my Bruder conversion we discussed prviously? It is : MX1508 DC Motor Driver Hobby Module Controller Regulator 10V 1.5A Dual H-Bridge. I would send you a link but I’m afraid I don’t know how to.

Thank you

Moysey

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10

Hi @Moysey ,

I’ve found this one on Ebay. It looks like it should work fine with your small motors.

But you will need to connect this driver board with microcontroller (like Arduino) and then program it.

Something like this:

11

Igor. Sorry, all that is way beyond me. As I explained I need soething realy simple and plug and play.

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It’s hard to find something without soldering and/or programming.

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I agree. But the info on the ebay site shows this little unit attached pretty much directly to the input battery and motors (no mention of an Arduino). I will be controlling it from my RC transmitter via a receiver so it would be basically as pictured. I’m quite happy to solder the few points necessary. Can you see any reason why this shouldn’t work?

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14

I don’t see where it says that it is RC compatible.

Here I only see batteries, motors, driver and circuit breaker. So probably this runs when circuit breaker is ON:
image

It it not clear if this board can be wired directly to RC transmitter.