Sabertooth 2x60 and 4 wheel chair motors

[cbenson]

Use some pillow blocks and sprockets / chains?

[cbenson]

That looks really well done! Can you upload a video - very curious to see it turning and pulling weight. Think about producing it?

[cbenson]

You can get a YouTube app for the phone and upload to your own YouTube page, then post the link here.

[jongig]

I was looking through your motor controllers and I thought I’d just ask if you think one is better than another? I’ve not personally used the Sabertooth and so maybe one would be better for my application.

As for fuses, I do plan on putting a circuit breaker or fuse on the battery connection. I’ve not decided on how to switch the power on/off to the motor controller but my thought is to use the Battleswitch you sell and then have it power a power relay to the motor controller. With this I’ll have a fail safe built into the RC receiver that shuts off power to the motor controller in the case of a bad signal. This thing could do some serious damage if it were to get out of control.

[jongig]

These were on a Quantum chair with one 35 amp circuit breaker and a rating of 300 pounds which doesn’t include the weight of the chair. I would guess that these would have a stall current well above that but I would also consider a breaker in the battery cable of say 80 Amps. I don’t think I’d like to stall these motors because they’d probably just melt. This was one of the reasons I decided to go with 4 motors, besides the easy steering it seems like each motor would work less and be more efficient. I’m also not sure of how each motor on one side will react if say one is stalled and one has no traction. This would cause more current to one motor and this would not work. I guess I could try it and then if I get bad results I could purchase a second controller.

Years ago I used motor controllers with motors in series and this will absolutely not work since the motor that needs more amperage will just stall and provide a shunt to the other motor thereby doubling the voltage to the only motor spinning. I can’t recall theory for motors in parallel. If one motor stalls what is the effect on the second motor? It would seem that in a 30 amp draw the motor stalling would draw more amperage than the one that’s free and I believe that would be okay.