4WD Rover? Help selecting components

ArduRover Miscellaneous
1

Hello everyone,

Absolute beginner here.

I’m looking to build a 4WD rover; I notice in the Ardurover software there’s only modes for steering/throttle and skid-steer. Can skid-steer do what I want? But 4WD?

Can I use something like this for ESC/Motors? https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-trackstar-540-20t-brushed-motor-60a-esc-combo-for-1-10th-crawler.html?queryID=&objectID=85457&indexName=hbk_live_magento_en_us_products

What board should I get? Everyone seems to run the Pixhawk; but I eventually want it to talk to a Jetson Nano to do some object recognition. I see the NAVIO2+Raspberry Pi but not sure if that’s up to the task.

I will also need the frame, battery, PDB, GPS, receiver/transmitter.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

1 Like
2

I am in the process of getting one of these setup…its pretty cool.

https://www.servocity.com/prowler

Used the motors with encoders though in addition to that $99 option.

I have the 2x35A roboclaw ESCs. Using a HolyBro Pixhawk4 as the controller, although I havent quite gotten it to accept the encoders just yet.

3

Those motors and ESC’s will work fine. I have a 4wd Crawler with a PixRacer. but just about any Flight Controller that supports ArduRover will do. The demands for a rover are low. All you need for a companion computer is a serial port.

For a chassis I just converted a Redcat Crawler which runs great.

4

If you want 4wd with Ackerman steering then your only option would be to assign the front wheels to the same throttle output as the rear. If you want 4x independently driven wheels then you are out of luck. We have a similar setup but with 2x steering motors and I had to implement our own solution to drive all 6 motors.

5

Thank you everyone for the responses! I have decided to go with 2WD instead (skid-steer, 2 drive wheels and a castor). Maybe for the next iteration I will do 4WD with the front wheels as same output as the rear.

To save $; I’ve decided on these components:

Battery: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/zippy-compact-5000mah-3s1p-20c.html
2x Brushed Motor: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/540-6527-brushed-motor-90w.html
2x 60A ESC: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/hobbywing-quicrun-60a-2s-3s-waterproof-brushed-esc-for-1-10.html

Along with:

Pixhawk 2.4.8
safety switch
buzzer
PPM encoder
I2C splitter module
I2C Line
PPM/SBUS Line
Power module
M8N GPS
shock absorber
OSD OLED
ESP8266 Wifi Module

The battery has 4mm bullet connectors; so I’ll pick up a bunch of 4mm bullet connectors as well as XT60 connectors.

I just want to get this guy to move slowly about a predefined mission; is there anything I’m missing? Thank you,

6

Got an RC system? You will want one for setup and calibration. If you are thinking, as many do, that you will just fly/drive this vehicle with a mobile device you will still want an RC system.

7

Those motors do not have a gearbox. How do you plan to gear the motors down?
Without a gearbox the motors will turn to fast and have not much torque.