This week I made a lot of progress with the construction and hardware of the robot. The motor now runs well with the drill battery, 18V to 12V step down, and new Cytron Motor Driver.
In the beginning of the week things were a little bit iffy because we were having trouble finding a battery that had enough power to power our new high powered motor. We tested using multiple power supplies and our old L298N motor drivers and the L298N could not handle the current. We then came up with the idea of using a drill battery and the ones they have in Tech Spark are 18V. We tried powering our motor with this but every time we tried it the leads produced a huge spark. Therefore Serena and I found a 18V to 12V Step Down connector for a Milwaukee Tool Battery. After that I researched new motor drivers that could work with our motor. After research, I concluded that the Cytron MD30C was the most cost efficient reliable option. Additionally I discovered we needed a machine key to properly transfer the torque from the motor to the shaft and got that ordered.
After everything came in we connected the motor, motor driver, drill battery with step down and arduino together and it all works. We also connected it to the shaft of our intake and it powers the intake very well. Below is a video of everything working. Currently the motor is spinning at a speed that is too fast which is causing the bottle to bounce off the back wall, but we will easily fix this soon.
Now, I am 90% confident that the hardware for the robot will work successfully and as intended! 🙂
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