Using a 12 or 18 volt drill battery for power?

Projects General Guidance
1

I’m getting near the end stages of my robot and I’m trying to figure out the best way to power it. My thought is to use a 12 or 18 volt rechargeable drill batter. I need to power a Arduino uno board, a LN298 motor driver (powering 4 dc hobby motor) and a breadboard power supply.

was thinking of using a LM2596 to convert the battery voltage down to 5v and then running a lead from that to each board. Is this the best way to do it? Im not sure what the power draw from the robot will be. Im planning on taking him to a supercon and need to make the battery last as long as possible. I figured I could carry one or two spares to swap out if needed.

Also, am I over thinking the power supplies? The LN298 probably needs the direct line running to it. I’m using the breadboard because I have a handful of blinking LEDs, a laser emitter, a speaker, and 2 servos and I was going to power them with the breadboard with a dedicated power supply rather than using a jumper to bring the power from the uno board.

2

Yes, if I remember correctly that this will form buck regulator.

Unless you want to have fun and really know what you are doing, get a buck regulator module, maybe it will use that chip.

Or maybe you shorthand and mean a moduke with that chip.

Also, you can do better than the 20th century LM298.

Buy the buck regulator from a known vendor, and use it at half its nominal current capacity for best result.

Shop www.pololu.com for both regulators and motor driver boards.

Food Good luck at the supercon, whatever that may be.

Hungry.

a7

3

What is specification of your motors?

If you will cannot to power the motor and driver directly from the 18v battery (for example, because the motors only require 12V), there is no point in increasing the battery voltage.
For all other components, like Arduino and everything else you have on your breadboard, high battery voltage does nothing. It will only lead to possible overload of the voltage regulator

4

Quite possibly.
You might find that the drill manufacturer also supplies a 5v USB adaptor. Mine is 2.1A. I imagine that is typical, and might be adequate for your needs.

5

Use some caution as those batteries can put out a lot of current, wire melting levels.

6

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