Investigate power source

[naturesyouth]

Issue by JSpringett
Wednesday Nov 23, 2016 at 14:21 GMT
Originally opened as abersailbot/kitty-hardware#7

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What batteries? How many? How is the PI supplied? How is the rest of the system supplied?

[naturesyouth]

Comment by Danyc0
Wednesday Nov 23, 2016 at 21:00 GMT

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The black batteries in kitty are 4*7.2v NiMh (but much higher capacity than those in Dewi, hence why they're so much heavier and slightly bigger). They're in series for the computers to run the RoWind at the right voltage, but in parallel for the servos to give them enough current capacity. (All recalled from 3 year old memories, so take with a pinch of salt)

[naturesyouth]

Comment by JSpringett
Wednesday Nov 23, 2016 at 21:02 GMT

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Cheers Dan

[naturesyouth]

Comment by Danyc0
Thursday Nov 24, 2016 at 01:12 GMT

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It might be worth switching to having both sets in parallel and using a boost converter to get the voltage needed for the RoWind. This was originally discounted because of the inefficiencies in boost regulators as compared to buck regs, but now, thanks to us having a working PCB (Captain Morgan), it opens lots of doors with regards to very efficient boost regulators. This would allow us to better standardise electronics between the boats (with a Do Not Populate on the boost reg for boats which don't have a RoWind).

[naturesyouth]

Comment by naturesyouth
Thursday Nov 24, 2016 at 01:15 GMT

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i would be tempted to populated it anyway, that way all the boats are spares for other boats, increasing the available redundancy while at a competition, it can always be disabled through software to save power.