running bot off car battery?

[FotoPlasma]

Originally posted by Al Skierkiewicz
I couldn't put my finger on what looked strange about this suggestion and then it came to me. Powering each motor with a separate battery would not allow you to have one single shut off in case the robot went nuts.

If the signals to the speed controllers are cut off, they wouldn't be able to run the motors. As long as the RC is connected to the battery with the main breaker connected, I don't think that should be a problem. Also, when the robot is disabled through the Competition port, the RC ceases to send signals to the speed controllers.

In other words, the Disable function of the Competition port should work fine.

I need to just sit down with an RC, and OI, some other odd pieces of the kit, and a scope, and figure out exactly what happens.

The problem with there not being a central emergency cut-off would be when you allow custom circuit boards to supply PWM signals to speed controllers. That would effectively bypass the emergency controls, and allow your robot to operate at any time, only considering there's power to all necessary components.

It's way too early, so I apologize in advance if I'm wrong.