Motor controller for 500 PPR brushed DC motor

Help & Support Robot Parts
1

Hi,

I am looking for a motor controller(s) to control four brushed DC motors+encoders on a mobile platform that can also handle the encoder values from the encoders. I am looking to buy a motor with the following specs:

  • Rated voltage: 24V
  • AB phase 500 PPR Photoelectric Encoder
  • Rated power: 100W
  • Rated current: 6A
  • Blocking current: 22A
  • No-load speed: 275 RPM
  • Rated speed: 175 RPM

I need to control four motors with encoders that provide 500 PPR and was looking at getting two RoboClaw 2x15A, 6-34VDC, but I am unsure about the quadrature encoder, does it mean it can read and forward the encoder values from my motor encoders?

Is the Roboclaw overkill, is there an alternative e.g. just reading the encoder values with and Arduino? At maximum robot velocity the motors will rotate at around 2,5-3 revolutions per second, so that is around 1250-1500 encoder ticks per second (4x because it is AB quadrature?). Is that feasible to read with an Arduino if I use interrupts or should I simply get something like Roboclaw, which can read the encoder?

2

Hi there,

This probably won’t answer all your questions but to know if the RoboClaw is overkill, you have to compare it’s specifications with the one on the load you gonna drive.
In our case, they are Motors.

3

Hi,

Thank you for your answer, though I am not entirely sure where you are getting at :slight_smile: I am comparing the specs and for the encoder readings the Roboclaw supports 19.6 million pulses per second, that should be plenty for most applications.

My questions were related to the general understanding on how the Roboclaw / quadrature encoder readings works i.e. is it correct it can read the encoder values, and e.g. also be read by my ROS node?

Furthermore, is the Roboclaw overkill in the sense that I only need to read 4x 1500 encoders ticks, should I just do this with an Arduino instead.

In the meantime I may have come to the conclusion to go for the Roboclaw regardless if it can be done with an Arduino, since the Roboclaw has built-in PID tuning so I get more out of the box in one solution.