Hacking a Mobility Scooter Control Circuit

Community General Discussions
1

Hi;

I have acquired a mobility scooter as a start to a robotics project. The scooter has two geared motors and two 12v batteries. Being a mobility scooter it iscontrolled manually via a joystick.  

I am not 100% sure which way this project is going to go, my initial intention was to build a DALEK or DAVROS using the manual control but I thought it would be neat to include Remote Control and even Autonomous.

Would it be possible to hack into the existing control interface and add both RC and Autonomous. As well as the issues of interfacing these three modes I thought perhaps a three way switch to select either Manual, RC or Autonomous?

Your thoughts would be appreciated?

Here's the motors:

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And the controller:

IMAG7869.jpg
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And one of the two batteries:

IMAG7866.jpg

 

 

2

A very sneaky way to do it

A very sneaky way to do it would be to hack the joystick by adding two servos to control its x-y position. Then you can drive the servos with whatever programming  you like.

3

Controller

The easiest way is to eliminate the controller completely and use one of the many Sabertooth ESC, (Electronic Speed Controllers), available. They take standard servo inputs so it is easy to use either an R/C receiver or an Arduino to control it.

See my Jazzy robot for more information.

4

Another example

I haven’t put this robot on LMR yet, but I’ve been playing around with scooter motors too.  

Here’s a link to my short blog post and videos: http://www.robojay.us/robotics/256/

The local robot club members call it a radio controlled battery :slight_smile:  Two lead acid batteries and electronics are all housed in the big battery box.

This is the controller I’m using:

https://www.robotshop.com/en/dimension-engineering-sabertooth-2x25.html

It was super easy to hook it up in R/C mode for testing.  Eventually I’ll convert over to serial control.

–Jay

5

Thanks guys, I have ordered

Thanks guys, I have ordered a Sabretooth 2 x 32A controller and have read the data sheet and it looks like this will be the easiest option.

Looks like it can take be setup to take an R/C receiver and a microprocesor control (Arduino or raspberry Pi) consecutively to enable manaul and autonomous control. 

6

Just taken delivery of my

Just taken delivery of my Sabretooth 2x32A board. Now I am looking for second hand Tx / Rx or considering other DIY / hacking solutions.

Thanks