Hi Everyone. I would like to motorise a beach cart and be able to operate it with a hand held transmitter. The concept is exactly like that of a remote controlled golf trolley. I have a 12v SLA battery, 12v DC motor for propilsion, a 12v feedback actuator for steering and a 3 channel radio and reeciever. Reseearch on a controller suggested a Pololu jrk G2 21v3 with feedback, I need assistance to connect this all together, electrically of course. Looking forward to your respones.
Thanks
Hi Clarence,
Really sorry for the long delay! There’s a fair bit here, so let’s dive in.
The first thing to identify is what signals your radio receiver can/will output to control things. They’ll typically be designed to drive a servo so you may need something to translate the servo control signals into something more useful. Most servos require a PWM or PPM signal:
As for the motor controller a 21v3 may or may not be suitable - it depends on the electrical specs of your DC motor.12V x 3A is only 36W, so I suspect this won’t be enough for a beach cart. You’ll probably want at least 100W for that - sand is a pretty ineffecient surface to drive on. I’d suggest looking for something rated for about 10A like this:
As for the battery, you can get a rough estimate of the required battery size by multiplying the total Current draw of your system by the amount of time you want it to run for. I’d take a rough guess at 15A for the whole system, and give yourself 2h of drive time, so you’re looking for around a 30Ah SLA battery.
If you can let us know some more details on your product specs and once you’ve settled on some components we can get into wiring connections.
Regards,
Oliver
Support | Core Electronics
Hi Oliver,
Thanks for the reply. I did this diagram to show what I wanted to achieve. If you think that the jerk 12vx12 controller is suitable, I will go along with it. To start the ball rolling, let me know and I will purchase it online from you guys immediately. All the other bits I will purchase as we go along.
Again, many thanks for taking the time to respond.
Hi Clarence,
The trick to tackling a complex project like this is to break it down into smaller, separate problems, solve those, then put it all back together to get a complete solution, and iterate a few times to get a better version.
I see you’re now looking at using a 250W 12v motor so you’re going to need a controller capable of over 20A.
Power = Voltage x Current
Power / Voltage = Current
250W / 12V = 20.83 A
In this case a 12v12 won’t do you (FYI, Pololu’s naming system for their motor drivers is XvY where X is the rated voltage, and Y is the rated current).
In which case you’ll need something like this:
As for the actuator, you might want to use a linear actuator like this:
Regards,
Oliver
Support | Core Electronics
Hi Oliver,
I have the feedback actuator already. It is the Firgelli optical feedback actuator dynamic force 100kg.
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