Hi,
I bought a T-rex tank chassis : https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12719 Along with a pair of Simple High-Power Motor Controller 18v15. On the T-rex specs, it says that the DC motor runs at 12V, But I have a lot of 6S Lipo battery.
Can I still use the 25.2V battery via the 18v15 to power my tank chassis? Should I do a serial power connection? Should I limit the power around 60%?
Hello.
You can use the 6S LiPo to power your robot, but in that case I would recommend one of our higher voltage Simple Motor Controllers like the G2 24v12 or the G2 24v19. You will have much less safety margin with the 18v15, so if you go with that, I strongly recommend you take measures to limit voltage spikes, like setting conservative acceleration and deceleration limits.
I suspect you might have meant to ask if you should make series power connections (not serial power connections). You definitely should not connect your motor controllers in series. They should be connected to your battery in parallel, and they should share a common GND with whatever electronics you use to control them.
It is generally fine to run brushed DC motors at voltages slightly higher than what they are rated for; doing so results in higher speeds and torque at the cost of some lifetime. However, at over twice the intended voltage, those motors will likely get damaged very quickly (if not immediately), so to avoid this I would suggest limiting the maxim duty cycle from the motor controllers to around 50% (effectively bringing the voltage to the motor down to its rated voltage).
- Patrick
Hi Patrick, thanks for your reply,
About the max voltage I can always charge my lipo with a li-ion profile, so 4.1v per cell, so it will lower it to 24.6v, a bit better
For the duty cycle around 50%, I changed the max speed to 1600, the average voltage I read with my multimeter is 11.96v, so it’s working
Cheers
