Gobble Squabble: Details Of Electrical Controls

This post documents details of the electrical control circuitry for your Antweight combat robot, including connections and assembly. Specifics of connecting all the recommended types of motor controllers/ESCs are included. Please refer to the pictures for information and details. Click here for information on where to obtain any of these parts.

VEX Motor Controller 29 + Custom BEC

This first diagram shows the full wiring required if you use the VEX Motor Controller 29 in your robot. This motor controller/ESC has no BEC in it, so you must build your own BEC using the 7805 chip shown (note: you can substitute a 7806 chip for the 7805 if your robot uses 1 or more servos and you want them to have more power). The custom-built BEC connects into receiver port 6 with a JST connector. You must build 2 of everything in the “(Do 2 of this section)” to complete your robot wiring. (Note: connection of a brushless motor and its controller is not shown, intentionally. Brushless motors are an advanced skill since they deliver much more power to the driven object — e.g., a weapon. Therefore we recommend that combat robot designers first master the basic connections shown before moving onto brushless motors systems. With mastery of these basic skills, connection of brushless motor controls is straightforward. If the brushless motor controller/ESC contains a BEC, the separate BEC shown in this diagram is not needed.) Depending on your transmitter configuration, the 2 robot drive motor ESCs will connect either to receiver ports 1 and 2, or 3 and 4.

Using ESCs With Built-In BEC

This diagram summarizes the control system connections when ESCs with internal BECs are used. This applies to the HobbyPower 10A Brushed ESC and FingerTech tinyESC units. With the tinyESC, JST connectors must be spliced onto the bare power and motor-connection wires; with the HobbyPower unit, the JST connectors are already present. The wiring is much simpler with these ESCs, as the diagram shows. Depending on your transmitter configuration, the 2 robot drive motor ESCs will connect either to receiver ports 1 and 2, or 3 and 4. The comments about connection of a brushless motor ESC from above apply to this case too.

This information is original work by Techno Chaos and is published under the terms of Creative Common license mode Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA).

Mike Hinkle

Mike Hinkle is a STEM educator, inventor and maker. Together with his wife Jeanette Breton in 2011 he started Techno Chaos in Sugar Land, Texas, a STEM education center with the mission to inspire learning and innovating and thereby build creative individuals and tech-savvy communities. After more than 3 decades of engineering and technology leadership roles in the Energy industry, Mike became convinced there was a significant need for K-12 students to relearn the creativity and opportunity possible within the STEM career fields and to better prepare them for that. Despite the amazing progress in technology and its increasing impact on our lives, for most students the STEM education experience had become passive and unengaging, so Mike and Jeanette created Techno Chaos to deliver rich authentic STEM learning using hands-on projects and classes featuring leading-edge technology. The goal was to get students on the path to where they are still active learners and productive creators 30 years and more from now. Mike and Jeanette have two sons in Lewis Palmer 38 in Monument, Colorado, and enjoys being an entrepreneur in a business where they can apply a wide range of creative and inventive energies. They have organized large learning events such as Houston Mini Maker Faire and the Maker Exhibition at Comicpalooza, and travel extensively within the US with their sons when they are able to get away on vacations.