Choosing a Battery

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1

Hey guys,

I’m am wondering how to choose the correct battery size and type for my robot.

Here are the specs:

it is a two wheeled robot and uses to CIM motors
it must be able to drive for 45 min on one battery charge
the robot needs to carry a payload of 50lbs

Would a 12V 17Ah battery be enough for this robot?

Thanks for the help!

2

from what i know about batteries, i rekon that should be ok …

3

just use the standard First robotics battery

4

use a high capacity lipo (lithium polymer). like a 3 or 4 cell 10,ooo mAh size.

5

To answer this question you need to know how much average current your motors will draw.

There are a couple different ways to calculate/measure average current.

  1. Power graph of a motor based on your torque / speed setting
  2. Use a multi-meter to measure current draw from your battery source
    (be careful to only use one motor at a time to avoid blowing the Fuse in your multimeter)

Once you know that your robot draws 15Amps per Hour (15Ah)

Then a 17Ah 12 Volt battery should definitely last your robot 1 hour of run time.