I have used several different microcontrollers along with motor controllers to operate what is essentially a linear actuator (motor driving a worm gear coupled to an acme screw with home made limit switches). This system worked fine for my initial project but I found that I needed more torque to drive the screw.
That means I either gear it down or go with a bigger motor. Gearing it down is not an option because speed is essential so I need a bigger motor. A bigger motor means more current and that’s where my problem is. The controllers I have been using are between 5A and 10A max. I’m going to need 25A. My questions are:
-If I use the simple motor controller 18v25 will I still get bi directional control
using the analog input and a single potentiometer?
-If I use the Jrk and an encoder can I set limits and scrap the limit switches in
in my motor circuit and still get bi directional control with a single pot.
Any help would be greatly appreciated since I am new to all of this.
Yes. This is one of the applications the Simple Motor Controller was designed for.
The jrk does not work with quadrature encoders, so no. Still, you can use a jrk to control the speed of the motor with a single potentiometer as the input. If you had a potentiometer connected to your system measuring the current position, then you could do position control with the jrk. The largest jrk is the jrk12v12 and it can only supply 12 A continuously (30 A peak) so maybe that’s not good enough for your system.
–David