Author Topic: charging station  (Read 3045 times)

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Offline cooldogTopic starter

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charging station
« on: December 12, 2007, 06:45:26 AM »
okay i was thinking of making a charging station for my RC robot.

okay so this is ho i would like to do it: i would have 4 switches mounted to the front so that if there is pressure on the switches they will not let any current through. okay the switches are hooked to, my receiver, front steering on the RC truck Chas, LED head lights, and wireless camera. (note: all devices have secondary switches) okay then i hot glue 2 contact plates ( +, - ) to the buttons. i will solder one wire to both and run it to the battery. my battery is 4.8 volts. i will have 5v comming from the base station. if i leave the battery's plugged it and the back wheels on will it charge the battery's or just supply power to the motors bypassing the battery's. ( the motors will be on but not running)

the base station is a square box with a slot to run the RC car into. to hold the car while it was charging i was thinking cut some plastic pipe so you have a small circle then cut it in half again so you have 2 half circles and line it up with the front wheels then get a shaft and hook it up like a teetotaler so the front wheels will push on the piping and flip it over so that it is locked it place until you reverse and you flip them over again. i will have 2 contact plates on the base station ( + - ) and a 5v transformer inside.

also it is important to know that when it is charging only the back wheels have power and that it only charges the recharable battery in the RC truck chasi not the receiver, LEDs, or the camera
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Offline Ro-Bot-X

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Re: charging station
« Reply #1 on: December 12, 2007, 12:21:29 PM »
I think it would be much simpler if you would build something like those bumper cars setup. The robot should have an anthena that would touch the ceiling of the charging station and another wire that you would drop to touch the ground plate. As polarity goes, the ground plate should be the negative and the ceiling should be the positive.

Or have 2 lateral arms that would close in to touch some metal plates on the sides of the robot.

This way, you don't need to power the wheels at all during charging.
« Last Edit: December 12, 2007, 12:22:22 PM by Ro-Bot-X »
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Offline cooldogTopic starter

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Re: charging station
« Reply #2 on: December 12, 2007, 01:35:27 PM »
the reason that i wont the back wheels to to saty on is because when it is done chargingh you will just hit reverse and it will detatch the rc truck from the charging station putting all the sensors back online
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Offline Ro-Bot-X

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Re: charging station
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2007, 04:01:28 PM »
By having the wheels on but not rotating I understand you have the motors braked. And that is a waste of power during charging. You can have the electronics powered, but not the motors, that would make them "floating" or free wheeling. All you need to do is attach the Enable pin of the H bridge driver to the microcontroller and set it to High for powering the motors and to Low for floating them. If you are using servos, just don't send any pulses to them while charging.

Your mechanical setup will work, but I think it is too complicated.
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Offline cooldogTopic starter

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Re: charging station
« Reply #4 on: December 12, 2007, 06:05:05 PM »
okay i think i will stay withn my original idea. but should a up the charge voltage to make up for the loss from the motors
robot will rule the world and i will be building them
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favorite web sites
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http://www.instructables.com/

 


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