Is there any way to reduce my dc motor's current usage without affecting its overall performance?

Using Arduino Motors, Mechanics, Power and CNC
1

Hi, I have made a four wheeled arduino bluetooth controlled car. I have used an arduino uno, l298n motor driver, bluetooth sensor and three 3.7v li- ion rechargeable batteries along with four 3-6v dc gear motors.

The problem is that after several days of using the car, my motors eventually become slow despite using fully charged batteries and I am forced to replace them. So, instead of buying new gear motors, I only bought the motors present inside of the gearboxes (which are said to also operate at 3-6v) separately and placed them inside my existing gear boxes. I did this to reduce costs since I already possess the gearboxes and buying them along with the motors is more expensive and unnecessary.

Now, the problem is that these new motors without gear boxes consume too much current and make my l298n motordriver overheat after 2-3 minutes of using the car. The previous motors consumed less than 0.5 amps but these motors consume more than 1 amps, which really overheats my l298n motor driver and produces a burning stench, and also discharging my batteries very fast as well.

Thus, in order to reduce my current usage, I have reduced the voltage supply to the car, but then the motors simply run very slowly. Is there any other possible way to reduce the motors current usage from > 1 amps to < 0.5 amps without affecting the speed of the motor that much?

2

Welcome to the forum

The performance of the motors will be in some measure proportional to the power that they use, so it is difficult to see how you can reduce the current used without affecting the performance

3

Look for motors having the same data as the old ones. Clearly You bought more powerful motors.

4

No but your might buy a more efficient driver like the DRV8834. It has an operating voltage range of 2.5V to 10.8V

1 Like
5

That motor driver is less than 60% efficient. There are newer options like mosfet based solutions that are 80-90%+ efficient. One of those should give you in upwards of 50% greater battery life.

In addition, you can consider a better battery option like a lifepo.

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