Variable Power Supply Protection Without Voltage Clamp?

General discussion of using Roboclaw motor controllers
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ecorrales
Posts: 33
Joined: Sun May 06, 2018 5:06 am
Variable Power Supply Protection Without Voltage Clamp?

Post by ecorrales »

I tried reviewing as many posts as possible, just want to make sure I understand.

configuration is:
--two 12V motors (20A stall)
-- one Roboclaw 2x15

Real-use will be a 12V lead-acid battery.

For testing /development, debugging, etc, would like to use a variable power supply, but want to protect it. It has current-limiting, over-voltage, thermal, and short-circuit protection. (it's an Eventek KPS305D ; 0-30V, 0-5A).

Am I correct in that setting the Main Battery max voltage to (example: 13V) via Ion Studio provides some protection to the power supply?

I have previously connected a motor directly to the power supply and very slowly increased and decreased the voltage on the supply.

Now I wanted to connect the power supply to the Roboclaw. Only want to run one motor at a time, not both together.

How does that sound?

--thank you
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Basicmicro Support
Posts: 1594
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2015 9:45 pm
Re: Variable Power Supply Protection Without Voltage Clamp?

Post by Basicmicro Support »

Yes, setting the main battery limit to just above the power supply voltage is one one to deal with regen in some situations. But it has the disadvantage of cause the motors to brake hard when a regen overvoltage happens. This puts extra stress on the motors and the motor controller and you may not like the motors braking hard like that. If that is the case you need to have a voltage clamp circuit(like we describe in the User Manual) installed.

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