AyaAj:
Hello dear friends,
I'm trying to create and program a joystick to control an electric wheelchair whose two motors are 24V 250W DC motors. They also draw a current of 15.8A (according to their label).
I'm still a beginner with Arduino and I've been watching videos on how to control 24V motors with Arduino Uno and they all recommended using the L298N driver.
The L298 cannot handle even a fraction of the current of these large motors. Its good for small motors
only.
So I've been trying it twice and it burnt in the second time, where I lately knew that it couldn't handle this huge current, knowing that I'm using a 24V 20A DC battery (I know, don't blame me it's a very unforgivable mistake).
That will be 20Ah capacity battery, not a 20A battery. It may of may not be able to handle 20A, that's something
to look up in the datasheet for the battery.
Anyway, is there any other possible way to control these massive current-drawing motors without burning any component, using Arduino Uno?
You need a motor driver capable of handling (for brief periods) the full stall current of the motors, which means finding
out the stall current rating of the motors first. Its likely to be around 80A or more for a motor of that size.
Expect the stall current to be many times the continuous rating.
Alternatively you need some approach to limiting the current safely, such as a more advanced motor
controller with active current limiting.
I found this method using relays, MOSFET and transistors:
Arduino DC Motor Speed and Direction Control using Relays and MOSFET
No, won't handle anything like the stall current (probably weld the relays shut). Breadboards are not able
to take high current at all, even PCBs start to struggle after a few amps.
Big motors need dirvers to match them, this means rated for the continuous and peak current
ratings of the motor. No quick cheap approaches I'm afraid, or you'll just end up with a trail of
fried electronics.
I'll try it but I'm afraid I won't be able to connect it to my code to generate the desired results I want.
Any help would be appreciated! Thank you all 