I am building what i call a tug vehicle. It will be used to pull a giant sleigh in parades and move trailers around. It will have motors from 2 wheel chairs powering it. 2 on each side so it will be driven like a tank. They still have brakes on them. I would like to keep at least one set so i will need a way to release them. Can it monitor the voltage of the batteries? The batteries will be the batteries from the wheel chairs. Going to use all 4, going to wire it in series parallel. They are 24v. I need to know what items i need to control it dpeed controllers, joystick, etc. I could only post one pic of one of the motors right now.
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Hi @Michaelluke and welcome to our forum!
You have an interesting project.
I would recommend that you use dual motor Sabertooth driver: https://www.robotshop.com/search?type=product&options[prefix]=last&options[unavailable_products]=last&q=sabertooth
You can choose one depending on your motor amperage and number of the motors.
Here is one post which explains how to connect brakes of the motor to Sabertooth: Sabertooth 2x32 driving a motor 24v with a 12v brake
For control, you could use Radiolink transmitter/receiver pairs: https://www.robotshop.com/collections/radiolink-electronic?sort=price-descending
Rest is wiring, battery, etc.
I hope this helps a little bit.
Thank you. The wiring part i think that is the easy part. It days the sabertooth can operate up to 1000.y build prob will be heavier than that, the trailer it pulls.will that be a problem?
Not sure of the amps that they pull. Here is the details from the other det of motors i am going to use. I also attached pic of the original controller.
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Hi @Michaelluke !
Thank you for your reply.
This Pride controller: Was it used for 1, 2 or 4 motors?
It was used for 2 motors. I have another just different model number that controlled the other 2 motors. Same specs as it though.
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OK, so according to the label, motor peak power is 575W. If we divide that with 24V, we get around 24A of consumption for two motors.
If you want to use 4 motors, then you would need at least Sabertooth 2x32!
So i can get by with 2x60 then. I rather go big the first time.
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Does the controller joystick does it monitor the voltage of the unit itbis controlling? Is that even possible?
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Good choice for 2x60.
I don’t think the RC controller does this voltage monitoring, but for sure, some voltage meter can be installed.
For example: LED 4.5V - 30V Voltage Meter (Blue) - RobotShop
Thank you. The motors are rated differently for yop speed. How do you adjust for thzt with the sabertooth?
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That’s a good question.
I guess you would have to group two of the same motors to one Sabertooth motor output, and the other two motors with same specs to the second motor output.
How it will behave, I am not sure in practice, I am not sure 