Author Topic: any recommended motor controller or h-bridge???  (Read 3223 times)

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Offline johncbanTopic starter

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any recommended motor controller or h-bridge???
« on: April 12, 2009, 01:57:08 AM »
Hi mates!, my club member wrongfully assembled a motor controller :'(  (wrong capacitor position) and we can't fixed it no more... do you guys have any best recommended motor controller or H-bridge that is programmable through axon microcontroller under C or  C++ language that the price is  < $50.00...   :-\ our club has a very limited budget and my teacher would be so disappointed at this bad news which I am trying to cover up to avoid another class commotion...

Offline SmAsH

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Re: any recommended motor controller or h-bridge???
« Reply #1 on: April 12, 2009, 02:27:18 AM »
what are the specs on the motor(s) you are driving? how many motors, what voltage? what amperage? you need to say more than just  "suggest a motor controller that works with the axon" sorry but i got nothing from that.
Howdy

Offline johncbanTopic starter

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Re: any recommended motor controller or h-bridge???
« Reply #2 on: April 12, 2009, 04:28:41 PM »
2 DC motors, 12Volts powered; however, I am trying to find an H-bridged that is more than 12Volts capability, let's say 30~50 Volts

Offline Weird Fishes

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Re: any recommended motor controller or h-bridge???
« Reply #3 on: April 12, 2009, 04:47:30 PM »
Never used it, but this one supports up to 30V DC and 15 amps. It's one channel though, and you have two motors, so I'm not sure if that price you quoted is for one or both. I also found this, still single channel.

I think you are going to have a tough time finding 2 motor controllers that run at 50V for <$50, but good luck anyway.

Offline Admin

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Re: any recommended motor controller or h-bridge???
« Reply #4 on: April 12, 2009, 11:36:05 PM »
There are tons of dual motor drivers under $50 with those specs. Check the parts list on the main page.

Also, soldering a cap backwards on a motor driver won't break the motor driver, just the capacitor. ;D

Offline jpwalters

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Re: any recommended motor controller or h-bridge???
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2009, 05:16:17 PM »
We got one of these for our robotics project:

Pololu Dual MC33887 Motor Driver Carrier - $39.95

It will go up to nearly 30V, and can handle up to 5A per motor.  Very easy to control as well, though the pin layout looks complicated.  All you absolutely have to hook up for it to work is the Enable, Disable2', IN1, and IN2 on each motor, along with a ground (so for minimum operation of two motors you need 8 signal pins and one ground pin on your microcontroller).  All you do is bring the Enable and NOT-Disable pins high, and then control the direction of the motor by bringing one of the IN pins high and the other low.  Easy as cake.  You can also do fairly precise speed control using PWM either in hardware or software.

If you want to get really fancy you can also use the feedback pins for more precise control loops to help you regulate power to your motors.  We aren't using this personally, but I can see how it might be useful in some applications.  If you like it and want more info about it, just PM me or ask here and I'll try and answer any questions you might have.  (And no, I'm not a corporate hack, I actually found the recommendation for this controller on another thread in this very forum and have simply grown quite fond of it.)

Offline robomow

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Re: any recommended motor controller or h-bridge???
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2009, 11:36:32 PM »
most of my robots weight 500 to 6K lbs. But I just finished a survey robot that is light a real fast. I tried a 3A dual bidirectionial motor controller but had trouble with it.

So I switched to two $50 each parallax 25AMP bidrectional controllers. If you only need to control one motor in both directions this will fit your budget. It uses 50hz or single pulse controls 1ms full reverse 1.5ms stop and 2ms full forward. you only need a ground no power from the controller and can use any parallax Stamp. I use an ISOPOD. You can also control two motoer from a single line. It has a built in heat sink and even has a fan for cooling.

This might be over kill. I tool to $20 18V electric drills from harbor freight. They have built in planetary gears. And now have a vehicle that runs faster than I need(20 mph).  I have a 12V lead aid sealed batttery running it and a good sized payload, 6V battery, RTK GPS, Two radios, active antenna, GPS antenna on a heavy wood frame. Will probably burn out the drill motors first.

Good luck.

 


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