Nearing Completion!

italian_guy299 · June 25, 2007, 9:59pm

DimRobot:

For what its worth, I’ve run a motorized office chair driving myself around using two 18V Farbor Freight drills, rollerblade wheels and a 2x10. The 2x10 was mounted to a large aluminum frame, which helped with heat dissipation. It wouldn’t climb hills well (overcurrent protection would kick in) and it wouldn’t run for extended periods of time on carpet, but it didn’t kill the 2x10, either. We were “torture testing.”

The inexpensive cordless drill motors get smoky at prolonged currents around ten to fifteen amps anyway, depending on the voltage rating and if they have an internal fan.

Four drill motors isn’t something I’d recommend on a 2x10, but we do have a 2x25 coming out in about a month which current limits at 50A per channel. That’s being designed to handle cordless drill motors (one nice drill motor or two cheap drill motors per side)

I hope the price of this is affordable like the rest of the sabertooth’s

robotdude · June 25, 2007, 10:07pm

Weeee! I wanna work at Dimension Engineering. LOL

kroony · June 26, 2007, 3:56am

Pololu does a fairly high current motor controller:

pololu.com/products/pololu/0707/

This should run drill motors with no problems. If you slap on a good heatsink, you could probably run close to the 30 Amps that the motor drivers are rated at, with peaks of higher current.

I always thought these were great value compared to most motor drivers out there.

Steve

chazbcook · June 28, 2007, 8:52pm

I was wondering how much weight those cordless drills can pull, I have bought 4 sets of 3 inch tracks, i have custom built the tank tracks which weigh about 3 lbs each then i need batteries and electronics and some sort of body. Looking about about 10 to 15 lbs with all electronics. Is the 14.4 volt cordless drills enough or should i try the 18 volt.

Project will some day mow the lawn on its own. 21 channel gps, 512 mb sd card reader, accerameter, 3 ultra sonic sensors. Parts list as of now.

italian_guy299 · June 28, 2007, 8:58pm

14.vdc drill motors will deffinately pull 15 lbs. I’d say go with these rather than the 18vdc drill motors becuase it’ll be easier for you to find a good enough motor controller to work with it. Also, I’d suggest breaking open the drill battery packs and assemble the cells the way you want them and according to how much mAh and volts you want. Hope this helps!