Wiring A Plug For Battery Charging:

Question

You all will have to forgive me. Sometimes my brain just doesn't want to function.....it can be so frustrating!!!!!!!! I want to mount a jack for charging the battery on Gizmo. I think I would need to put some diodes (to control voltage direction only into the battery) between the jack and the battery terminals??????????? My main battery is a 12 volt, 9ah SLA what diodes would I need ? The band on the end indicates which way voltage flows, right? Any help would be appreciated. Lloyd

GotRobbed · Answer

Ive been thinking about doing the same thing. I havent tried anything yet but this is the wiring diagram Im thinking of trying out.  using this:  https://www.monsterscooterparts.com/xlrchposom.html  https://www.monsterscooterparts.com/xlrchco.html I dont know if it will work but we ll see. What do you think?

Robotz012248 · Answer

I think you may have a solution there. No diodes needed! I don't know why that wouldn't work. It isolates the battery so charger voltage MUST go the battery! Now, lets work on getting the bot to seek out a charging station so it would charge itself when needed. I'm thinking about IR beacons. I think I saw sum on Pololu.com. I'll get back to you on this. Thanks for workking wit me on this. Lloyd

GotRobbed · Answer

I like this idea Pololu IR beacon transceiver  https://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/701  and this the idea is, fixing the base to the wall or something upright and have the kettle end of it click in for charging. You could perhaps adorn the base with some kind of IR beacon so that the bot can easily centre itself onto it. This could be an easy (cheap?) way of hooking up your bot's internal charging module! https://www.914pcbots.com/documentation/914SuperchargerPowerpack.pdf

RR333 · Answer

GotRobbed; That is a way cool Link! Thanx!:)

Robotz012248 · Answer

Yep. That is the IR beacon I was talking about. It's a bit pricey however at $50. Think I'll keep looking for other sources maybe find a better deal. I'm not so sure on the tea pot idea. I'm thinking a magnetic field that strong might do weird things to electronics. I don't really like messing around with 115 ac. anyway. Actually I was thinning about a Rivio charging station and mod it for our purposes. I read somewhere that the battery charge didn't last very long on it. It would supply us with the parts we might need. More later

sfoy · Answer

Have you seen Spykee the Spy Robot? He has a charging base and uses IR to find it. All though I have to say, it has to be close to find it's base. https://www.spykeeworld.com/spykee/US/index.html You can find the stations online sometimes.

jstarne1 · Answer

That's fine but Mike connections are not meant to carry and significant current. It may get very hot. Go on eBay and get turnigy xt60 connectors , they are rated for high amperage and all gold coated , high silver content. Also batteries in series doubles voltage if each battery is 12v to 24v. If you want them to charge at 12v both positives and all negatives are connected to pos. And neg on your charger...

ndavid79 · Answer

Actually, most wheelchairs (including mine) charge with an XLR plug like GotRobbed showed. Wheelchairs use 2 12v deepcycle batteries rated at 65-100AHs! Meaning to charge that in an 8hr night (to be conservative, they actually charge a bit faster), that plug is easily capable of 10A. Also, as long as you use lead-acid batteries, you voltage regulators are fine with receiving charge voltages (about 8V for 6V system, 15V for 12V systems, & 30V for 24V systems) and your standby current isn't a substantial fraction of your chargers max charge current, there's really no need to disconnect the electronics from the battery while charging. And diodes are completely unnecessary.

jstarne1 · Answer

Yea I realized it was a different connector right after I posted... Ha ha I thought somone went.to radioshack and bought a Mic connector and those aren't rated for any amount of current. The xt60 connectors I mentioned are good for 60 amps though , so.they are excellent for all those internal connections , quick battery disconnects , connects from motors to motor controller ect.

Robotz012248

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