i bought a high-power motor controller (24v12) a while ago for a college project to run a pololu motor but when i can to use it, after installing the software and drivers plugged the controller into the computer but the computer did not recognize it and when i opened the software it did not find the controller either. i have very little knowledge about the controller, does it require a battery to be hooked up before it can be run?
Hello.
It sounds like you have the Pololu Simple High-Power Motor Controller 24v12. The Simple Motor Controllers (SMCs) do not need to be powered in order to be detected by the Simple Motor Control Center. (We have had people use the wrong software to try to connect to their SMC boards, so just in case, you should make sure that you are using the correct software.)
Can you try using a different USB cable (one that you know is working) and a different USB port to see if that fixes the issue? We have seen the same problem when other people try to connect our USB products to their computers using power only USB cables (e.g. cell phone charging cables) instead of USB cables with data lines.
- Amanda
Thanks for replying. I did most of those things befor posting about the problem, using multiple ports on multiple computers, two separate leads and the software linked to the controller in the resources on the site. Is there a way to tell if a cable is power only or is there a possibility I damaged the controller when I connected a 6V supply to it.
To identify if a USB cable is a charge only USB cable, you could connect a USB device (e.g. portable hard drive, smart phone, tablet) to your computer using that USB cable and see if the device is detected by the computer.
It should be fine to supply 6V to the Simple High-Power Motor Controller (SMC) 24v12, since it has a operating voltage range from 5.5V to 40V. (The SMC 24v12’s operating voltage range can be found under the “Specs” tab on its product page.)
- Amanda