If you don't want to read the whole picture, my question is:
Regarding a hall affect toroid current sensor: If you add a second jumper that doesn't go thru the toroid, and both jump are the same length, will the half the current go thru each jumper, so the sensor will only read a portion of the current? Thus allowing more current to go thru?
The whole story:
I am using a motor controller from an electric wheelchair with my Arduino project and it's working well. The controller will put out 80 amps to each motor when it's driving forward. Unfortunately, when you turn in the slightest bit, it will limit the current to 50%, or about 40 amps. (Obviously, in a wheelchair scenario, full speed on a tight radius turn would not be desirable.) But in my robotic cart, I really need more amperage when turning. I'm not needing more than 80 amps, but I need more than 40 amps on the turn. I think I've figured out how to do it.
If I can mod the current sensor so that only half the current goes thru it, then it's max current would actually be double, so 50% of the current would be the 80 amps. The programmer that I have for the wheelchair controller will let me set different things on the controller, like the max current for forward, and the max current turning. So if I can trick the current sensor so that it's actually using twice the current it thinks it is, and then set the max forward current to 50%, I'd have the 80 amps in forward, as well as turning.
So I opened up the controller and have done some inspecting. I was hoping to find 'current sense restore' that I could just swap out for a different value, but I think I've found 'Hall effect toroid' sensors. See these photos attached. There's one for each motor, and all the current goes directly thru that toroid and then to the motor connection point.
I don't know anything about what type/ratio, these sensors are, but I'm wondering if I can't just put a jumper across the bottom, the same length as the one going thru the toroid. Would half the current go through one jumper and half through the other? Or does this toroid have some kind of field effect that would tend to make all the current go through my added jumper that goes around it?
