Noob here. Doing electric rover/mower, from existing old electric automower. Holybro kakute FC, driving the main drive motors with sabertooth 2x32. I need to drive the 3 blade motors. They will all run at the same fixed speed. Ideally I could select one of two speeds: “normal” or “economy”(slower). Don’t know exact specs on the motors, but brushed, 24V, average 1-2Amps, but much more then stalled due to obstruction. Short of buying two more sabertooth motor controllers for beaucoup $$$, what do people suggest? I can’t seem to find inexpensive 24V ones. (8S LIFEPO4). Wondering if an electric bike motor controller (24V 250W) could be made to work at $10 each? A tentative, probably sketchy, design: Use a RC switch ($8 amazon) out of the FC to one of 3 ebike motor controllers on/off switch (using only wires for throttle via pot, 24V power in, power out to the motor, on/off switch) at $10 each on Amazon, and then the output direct to the blade motors at 24V and less than 200W. So, the FC would send a signal to the switch, which would turn on each of the ebike motor controllers, which would apply 24V to the blade motor, with speed controlled by a “throttle potentiometer”. This would work perhaps for a single speed, but would have to have multiple selectable pots on the throttle inputs to get eco lower speeds.
OK. Obvious that no one is reading this or cares, but I’ll update it anyway as my journey progresses. First, I was reading about the Frsky Taranis QX7 in the various ardupilot literature online here and it was touted highly. Well, that ship has long sailed. I picked up a QX7 on marketplace and bought a new Frsky receiver for it to get the SBUS and other features. I dinked around for a week with the Frsky, learning more than I wanted to know about LBT, FCC, V1, V2, etc, etc. Downloaded firmware, tried pairing many times. No joy. So I gave up and just bought a new Flysky with 10 channel receiver on amazon–about the same money as the Frsky. Got the new Flysky at 1:00, had my “little tank” up and running at 1:15, and my “big tank” up and running at 1:30. 90% of the time was spent plugging in wires in the two tanks. No grief, no firmware downloads, and same money. About $65 from Amazon, NIB, returnable. I don’t think I ever did fully understand the Taranis’ many screens. But it goes back on Marketplace tomorrow.
Next was the Holybro Kakute wing H743 flight controller. At least the pins were soldered. I am worried it will be like the Taranis–endless details to connect and operate. However, I had several questions and Holybro was VERY responsive and I really appreciate that. Probably should have spent the extra money on the pixhawk 6C, though.