Thread: Build Log - Bread Dead Redemption (FW) - First Build.

Great write up, and great to meet you and see BDR yesterday! Congrats on your victory again and on your performance throughout the day. Those dustpans were amazingly effective, especially at scooping up Wedgeley - seemed to spend a lot of time with either our bottom jaw or a wheel stuck in there!

Is this the Sabretooth ESC you have? If so, it might struggle a bit with two drill motors on each channel. As James says, to run two motors per side you'd just connect them together in parallel to the same channel of the ESC, either by connecting both into the same output on the ESC or making a separate cable to common the reds and blacks. However, 12 A might be a bit weedy to run two motors - the FeatherTwo (which was designed for this type of motor and application) is spec'd for 30 A per motor continuous and 80 A burst. I'm sure that's a bit OTT, but a quick read around suggests "normal" current from a 550 size motor at 12 V is of the order of 10 A. That means there's a fair chance two in parallel will be drawing 20 A a fair bit of the time, especially overvolted with a 4s battery, and you'd be over 100 A if two motors stalled.

In theory, the Sabretooth has overcurrent protection but I wouldn't rely on that save itself, plus if you trip the current limit the drive will cut out and leave you sat there like a muffin.

Regarding tank steering, it says on the Robot Shop site that the Sabretooth "... comes with options for exponential control, autocalibration and built-in mixing. The operating mode is set with the onboard DIP switches ..." So to control the two channels independently, you'd just need to find from the manual which of the DIPs sets the mixing and switch it off - if I'm reading that right. Then you'd have independent control of each channel.

If you want tank steering and two motors a side, these are OK and not too pricey. We have one running the weapon motor in Ensign Crusher and I believe Chris has one driving each pair of motors on Luna-Tic.

Edit: forgot to say, good luck with the updates!