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For a robotic project we are building a security robot. As a base we bought one of those electric cars for 2 kids, where they can drive in themselves without a remote. We took it apart, and we now know that it has 2 brushed DC motors. The challenge here is to find out how to drive the 2 12V - 30A brushed DC motors with a Raspberry Pi. We thought that a motor driver hat should be enough, but that isn't the case. We are no electrotechnicians, but I hope that anyone here knows how to do this and can help us out.

Thanks in advance!

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  • Hi @Douwe, Welcome. Ah, let me see. 12V 30A DC motors are for sure not for newbie hobbyists. You cannot find them in AdaFruit or SparkFun. My first suggestion is try RobotShop and Pololu: robotshop.com/en/… (2) Pololu Jrk G2 18v27 USB Motor Controller with Feedback pololu.com/product/3148. Good luck and cheers.
    – tlfong01
    Nov 15, 2019 at 14:08
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    It will be very hard for you to complete this project without knowledge about electronics. That said, there should be some controller already on there - what kind of circuitry did you find?
    – Bex
    Nov 15, 2019 at 14:10
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    but that isn't the case ... why do you feel that is a clear description of the problem you are having?
    – jsotola
    Nov 15, 2019 at 19:13
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    @jsotola, Likely because the motor driver hat had insufficient amperage, though I agree it's lacking necessary information.
    – Botspot
    Nov 15, 2019 at 21:38

2 Answers 2

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I did a similar project with a Power Wheels Wild Thing and an Arduino. I settled on buying a couple of BTS7960B motor controllers. They are rated for 43 amps, and I assume they will work for a Pi though I haven't done it myself.

Someone used these controllers on a Pi, they may have some helpful pointers.
Below is a simple diagram showing how to hook it up. motor controller schematic Keep in mind that since the Pi's GPIO pins are 3.3v based as opposed to an Arduino's 5v, the VCC pin should be powered with 3.3v.

Hope that helps.

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Just in case anyone is looking for this answer: we solved it with using a VNH2SP30 Motor shield on a Arduino Uno, that communicates serial to the Raspberry Pi.

The arduino has been setup to receive serial communication. We modified code that we found online, and that works perfectly fine.

It can then be controlled via a laptop with Arduino IDE that has a serial monitor build in, or, in our case, through a python script using the serial.write() function

setup arduino with motor hat

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