Electrical Team Overview
- Electrical Wiki Readme
- Electrical System Overview
- Battery System
- Kill Switch
- Power Distribution Board
- Fuse System
- Drivetrain System
- Arm Overview
This is where the general topics for electrical related things will be posted. This wiki page will contain diagrams and main design decisions. If a new decision for the current build changes an old one, i.e. new decision on type of board to use/circuit etc., send the old notes to the Archive wiki page and add a date stamp. This way only relevant information will be on the wiki and this will hopefully avoid confusion in the future.
For now please use this type of structure for the wiki:
- post links to drive contents where active discussion and notes are stored under a relevant heading
- add diagrams that are useful for an overview of the current design process for members to easily understand the current thought process at a glance
The use of this wiki is to make navigation far less clunky and confusing, especially for new members to find information and understand how different parts are connected and the logic behind design decisions. I found that the drive is clunky and confusing with all the different folders and outdated files in them. I myself would have like this wiki when I joined so I hope it makes the club easier to stay in touch with.
This will contain block diagrams and other information pertaining to the electrical system of the 2023 Rover called "Odyssey".
The Block Level Diagram for the Odyssey
The batteries used on the rover were the Sanyo NCR18650GA Lithium-ion batteries with a nominal voltage of 3.7V, 3500mAH, and peak current of 10A. The battery was assembled by spotwelding the batteries in a 7s, 8p configuration for a 29.4V, 28.8Ah. The batteries were connected to a battery breakout board found on the github and 6AWG cables were soldered onto the battery breakout board.
The Inside of the Battery
Battery Enclosure
The Kill switch for the rover is made with an 80A relay that allows for 2 isolated circuits where one circuit will energize an inductor that will act as a switch for the main circuit to allow for high current to flow.
The Kill Switch
The power distribution board works by taking the battery voltage of 29.4V to the appropriate output voltages of 24V, 12V, and 5V. The power distribution board comes with current sensing and voltage sensing circuitry to track the battery life and reverse polarity protection to protect the rover in case the rover is plugged in backward.
The Fuses used on the rover are automotive fuses which are housed in Blue sea systems fuse blocks, there are 2 fuse blocks on the rover, one for the 12V of the drivetrain, and arm, and one for 24V which operates the BLDC motors in the arm.
Fuse System
The drivetrain system is comprised of 4 12V motors which have an average current draw of 5A, and a stall current of 11A. The motor drivers for the motors
The rover's arm has 6 degrees of freedom, with the base being a 12V stepper motor, the shoulder and elbow being 24V brushless dc motors with built in encoders, and the wrist y and wrist x motors being 12V stepper motors and the gripper being a 12V linear actuator.
- Electrical Git page
- Component order list this is the document to add new parts that we want to order with a link to where they are found