Hi,
I was wondering, let’s say I have the mini ABB, SSC-32 and the sabertooth motor controller. could I use one batery pack for the motor controller and the mini ABB and another battery pack for the SSC-32 (with a robotic arm plugged in)… because just the arm takes a lot of power. And how much volts do I need in each batry pack?
Sam, thanks
yep, Idk that would be a problem. For the arm 6.0v to 7.2v is good. For the motors and Sabertooth, 12v-14v is good sub C cell type. I got this voltage by connecting these two batteries
lynxmotion.com/Product.aspx? … egoryID=48
into parrallel.
yeah you would probably want to go with 2 different packs or use one of the voltage regulators from LM to step the sub-c pack down to where it won’t hurt the servos.
edit: or an r/c BEC would do the same thing if you have one around.
yep, deffinately. Just be sure if u do want to connect two batteries together (like so many of us do 
) both cells have to be new and connected properly to avoid shorts ect of the battery. It is a good method though and is probably better than one GIANT battery IMO.
ok I will go with 2 sub-C cells, and I have a pack of good AA batteries (rechargeble of course). so next quesiotn:
can the LM universal charger at 25$ recahrge the Sub-C cells? it’s written for a 6 cell batery pack…
Sam
yes it can. I use it all the time.
I would use the following:
9V battery to power the ABB and SSC-32 electronics.
6V - 7.2V battery packs for the servos (separate for each side of the SSC-32 if you have more than 16 servos). The 6V 1600mAH packs would be great for each side of the SSC-32 for servos.
A separate battery pack for the motors if they require a different voltage than the servos. If you don’t have a lot of servos, and the motors take the same voltage range, you could power the motors from the servo supply.
How you organize your power supplies really depends on how many servos and how many motors you have to power and what voltages they require. In any case, I would allow for more current draw than you think you will actually need, and don’t forget about the surges when things power up.
8-Dale
I’d use two packs… a 6-cell (7.2V) or 7-cell (8.4V) for the motor controller depending on what motors I was using. With motors, more voltage means more RPM (speed), but the whole thing will run hotter and won’t live as long. Also keep in mind that the so-called 8.4V packs are usually more like 10V fully charged if you have decent NiMH cells. This is a fact, I have plenty of them.
For the SSC-32 and ABB, I would use a single 5-cell (6V) pack with a Y-splitter. Again, a 5-cell pack is really going to be about 7V charged and won’t drop down to 6V until it’s almost dead, assuming your batteries are not crap. Like linuxguy said, if you ever get up to a large number of servos, one NiMH pack might not dump enough current to keep them all happy.
As others have alluded to, you probably don’t want to power the servos with 5V regulated current from the ABB or the Sabertooth’s BEC.
I actually use Thunder Power 2S lipo packs (7.4V) in all my stuff now. Once again, those ratings are way low. I charge them to 8.4V or higher and they never rise above room temperature. They are 6000mah and can dump massive current because it’s 2 cells in series times 3 cells in parallel. And the 6000mah packs are the same size and weigh less than a 6-cell 3000mah NiMH. Also, with these lipo packs the voltage doesn’t drop much as they drain. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my packs as low as 7.4V.
Just offering another perspective.
