I've recently picked up an Arduino to control an electric trolling motor on the back of my Kayak. I currently have it hooked up to a 30A PWM from Amazon and it works fine.
However, the idea have having a single joystick to control motor direction, speed, steering and a "cruise control" function sound really good. So, I watched a butt load of videos and wrote the code. Hooked up the small motor that came in the kit along with a servo and everything works great.
Now I need to figure out how to take the pwm signal from the Arduino allow it access to LOTS of current. 30A is a minimum with 200A being a target. My current motor will never handle that load but..... with some new Lifepo4 batteries and a different motor I could always put that unused juice to work.
What I've done is written a sketch to run 1 dc motor and 1 servo. I've just had the L293D delivered to my door so I can run a 12V. How do I best get access to higher current? I had thought of using relays but after reading here, that idea has been shot down.
The reason I went with the L293D was
A: it allowed me to work with 12V.
B: it allows me to work with put to 4 motors so that I can easily add a linear actuator for tilt and trim, when I need it.
Use a suitable motor driver. The L29x series is for very small toys, typically made 20-30 years ago.
You will want one that can easily handle the stall current of the motor, so figure that out first.
This one claims to handle 100A peak: SyRen Single 50A DC Motor Driver-DFRobot
Thank you for that. Is this a product you knew existed or one you went looking for? I only ask so in the future my searches can get better. Thinking I could relay a solution did give me tunnel vision.
I typed something like "50 amp motor driver" into google, and that popped up on the first page.
But I knew that such things existed.
Note: brushed DC motors draw the stall current every time they start up, so you really do need a reasonable estimate of that value.
As a work around for this....
This is my current PWM,
PWM DC Motor Speed Controller, DC10V-55V PWM Brushed DC Motor Controller, Adjustable DC Motor Speed Controller, CW CCW Reversible Switch with Digit Display, for DC Brush Motor https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07WJ9MFXS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apan_glt_i_SM4KBC8NR7EMWVB27FS4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
If I was to designate 2 digital pins for direction that went high dependent on joystick position and wrote an equation for the speed, 512=0, 0=1023 and 1023=1023 I should be able to use the same joystick and arduino in concert with this PWM..... right?
Has anyone reverse engineered that motor controller, and made it work with Arduino? It does not appear to have 5V logic inputs.
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