Hi,
I want to build a wheeled robot (classic 2 wheels + castor) which is capable of tracking its position by monitoring/counting the drive wheel angle changes. As I am a complete noob in this area I was hoping that there might be some collective wisdom regarding this.
My instinct tells me to use stepper motors as counting the steps appears to be an easy task.
Thanks in advance,
Steve
If you are planning to use the powered wheels for differential steering it will be hard to keep track of position no matter how carefully you monitor the rotations. In fact that may be true, no matter which wheel (or wheels) you monitor.
A DC motor with a digital encoder might be more appropriate as it would be less power-hungry than a stepper. But the problem of determining position will remain. The stepper would probably be easier to control with a program as long as there is never a situation where a heavy load causes it to miss steps.
...R
Yes, the downside to steppers is the large constant power dissipation, which will
hose your battery life compared to a similarly sized DC gearmotor with encoder.
Keep an eye out for bargain gearmotor/wheel/encoder combos, but also think about
the specifications you need - speed and torque - try and determine your requirements
before spending money on a motor, unless you are happy to size your robot to match
your motors (rather than the normal way round)
Thank you both for your insight. You've definitely given me lots of food for thought.