Driving DC motor with two VNH5019 drivers in parallel (switched)

Support Motor controllers/drivers and motors
1

Hi,
I’m planning a system which will need to be redundant, that means that if a problem will cause the motor driver to fry I would need to switch (either automatically or manually) the motor to be used with a spare motor controller.

I have tested my motors successfully with VNH5019 drivers and was wondering what sould I switch and will it have any implications on the health of the motor, the driver or the power supply.

Should I:
a. switch the power supply between the drivers? (and connect the motor wires in parallel to both drivers)
b. switch both motor wires? (and power two drivers at once (even though one has it’s motor leads disconnected)
c. switch both power and motor leads?

I would love to hear your thoughts about this issue.
Thanks,
Ziv

2

Hello, Ziv.

Switching the motor wires sounds like it would have a better chance of working than switching the driver power supplies, as it would avoid the risk of shorts caused by different drivers doing different things to each motor wire at the same time, but that is not something we have tried and we are not confident it would work well. You might consider using a higher power driver to increase your safety margins, in which case you might consider one of our G2 High-Power Motor Drivers:

- Patrick