So i am completely new to working with an Arduino or anything related to robotics. I am a software engineer as a day job and decided to try this out for a hobby!
So i purchased this kit Magician Chassis - ROB-10825 - SparkFun Electronics and I have everything setup and working. However, one of the motors is turning slightly slower than the other. I was wondering if this is a defect with one of the motors or is this something you have to account for sometimes? I know i could adjust the speed for the faster one to account for it but did not know if that is the correct solution.
Likely there is some problem - could simply be some extra friction on one side (remember
this is cheap plastic moulding, not a precision engineered part).
If you can swap the motors round but leave the rest of the mechanics in place that
would identify if it was the motor or the gearing/wheels that is at fault.
Have you checked the motor by powering the motors directly from the same supply/battery pack?
Have you tried swapping the connections to the motor shield to tell if its that
causing it?
Hi, I've used that Dagu chassis a few times and it is not unusual at all for that (or most dc-motor chassis) to have differences in motor speed with the same applied voltage.. at least enough to have a curve instead of perfectly straight movement.
If you want better control, you either need to use a rotation sensor and keep correcting for the difference and/or experiment with the correction factor in software.
Some robot chassis come with a slotted disc on each motor intended for closed-loop control. THAT will go straight...
MarkT i tried switching the physical locations and tried swapping the connection on the motor shield and the same motor is always a little slower. Its barely noticeable to the eye but when it drives it always turns pretty aggressively to the right.