Now I know that I need some kind of motor controller to allow the Arduino to turn the motors on and off and in reverse and forward? Correct? I have 2 x (http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/catalog/bridge-motor-driver-p-934.html) which can run 2 motors each but my concern is they can only handle up to 1A and the motor stall current of the motors on that chassis are 2.5A so this is not good enough correct?
Finally the chassis has a built in 6 x AA battery holder which I will house NiMh batteries in, so I am assuming this is enough to power the motors or does this depend how much voltage is lost through the motor controller? And can I just run the Arduino on a NiMh 9v square battery for this project?
Sounds like you might need some beefier motor controllers. I would check out SainSmart, Adafruit, Sparkfun and RobotShop <-- Definitly RobotShop for your project! Also, since you will dealing with some higher than normal current loads, you might want to run a google search for a Ruggedino.
Thanks for the reply! Now I would prefere to stick with the Arduinos if I'm honest, so maybe there is a chassis somebody can point out which has tracks on still but uses motors with lower amps? And I think I will still look for a better moto controller however.
Well my plan was to have one Arduino and one Xbee on the robot, and then I would build a remote with the other Arduino and Xbee. The remote would be simple with just 4 buttons on it at first which have a HIGH or LOW status, this status is then sent via the Xbee to the other Xbee and the robots Arduino will take these commands and move the motors accordingly. Well I think this will work?
As for that motor shield, it does look good, but it says they power 2 motors each meaning I would need 2 for that chassis costing £40?
Or, just an idea which I have no idea if it would work, could you have one motor controller where one of the motor feeds controls the 2 left motors in parallel and the other feed controls the 2 right motors in parallel? Is this possible of would the amps be to high? Also just looking at that chassis again it requires 2.5A at stall so that motor controller still isn't enough?
As for that motor shield, it does look good, but it says they power 2 motors each meaning I would need 2 for that chassis costing £40?
I mod'ed my robot 5 by taking out the middle gear of the two rear gearbox/motors. It still has more than enough power to turn its self over trying to climb the walls.
If you are adding buttons then the oomlout starter kit has the buttons and a bread board to fit them on and lots of other bits like jumper wires to connect the buttons to the uno, pot (variable resistors) use these instead of buttons to get speed control as well as direction.
My apologies holmes4 but I perhaps should have mentioned before that I have had an Arduino for a while now and so have lots of basics like push buttons, breadboards, jumpers, resistors, transistors, LED's etc. So I feel the starter kit is not quite necessary for me.
As for your modification to the rover 5, I understand what you done but what did this achieve? Such as did it mean you only needed 2 motors running, did they use less power etc?
