Lynxmotion Tech Support

I have a couple questions and requirements.....
5.5 pound sumo bot
30x30 cm size
18 volts of battery power
Im getting a terminator chasis
with 4 12 vdc motors

questions:

1) Is putting a track on the wheels better for this bot, or leave the wheels the way they are

2) with 18 volts, should i power all 4 with less volts on each OR the back 2 with more volts on each

3) if i need 18 volts of batterys how many and which voltage is best

4) is gettin smaller volted motors, and batteries that over volt them better then perfect match volting, or under volting with higher volt motors

I don't know how well it would work to try and add tracks to the terminator.

18vdc on the motors would be fine for a sumo competition. The matches are only a 3 minutes or so. Plenty of time for the motors to cool off between matches.

Under-volting is not advantageous to winning robot competitions. Matching or over-volting is common in winning sumo robots.

_________________
Jim Frye, the Robot Guy
http://www.lynxmotion.com
I've always tried to do my best...

yea i know under volting is bad, but if i want to power four 12v motors with 18 volts, they will all be under volted, so my question is.. should i only power the 2 back wheel motors or all 4 with weaker voltage on each

i dont know if i clearly stated, but i can only use a max of 18 volts in my competition, so thats the problem

No no no no no no... No...

Wire the motors in parallel. Like this.



You can see both motors (+) are connected together, and both motors (-) are connected together, on each side. So if you put 18vdc on the wires both motors get the full 18vdc. Trying to wire the motors in series will not work. The motor with the most traction will have the lowest resistance resulting in the majority of the voltage going to the motor that's spinning. The opposite of what you want in a robot propulsion system.

_________________
Jim Frye, the Robot Guy
http://www.lynxmotion.com
I've always tried to do my best...