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Motor controller for existing with clutch
#1
I have an 90's vintage CETREK autopilot I want to run with pypilot. Issues are it has a clutch and trying to determine the amps it pulls. I am going through the manuals and haven't found amps yet and the label on the motor that lists it is unreadable.
There are 10 gauge power wires coming in.
I am guessing the clutch is magnetic.
Found other controller options:
https://www.pololu.com/product/2994

I am not that technical, but will keep researching and run it by a drone builder buddy.
The boat is a 1986 aluminum VIA Marine 42'.

Any input appreciated.

   
   
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#2
More info: Strangely the manual has no info on amp usage only fuse recommendation. 5A for clutch power supply and 30A for motor.
I hooked up to 12V and clutch pulls 1.05A at 14V. Freewheeling motor pulls 1.07. Pushing my thumb on drive pulls 3.44A.
If I run the motor again and if I was able to stop (stall?) the drive with friction, would that tell me the max amps?
The rudder is off the boat so can't do a better load test.
The pypilot motor controller has a clutch output option, but max amps is 15.
I was looking at the high power motor controller, but is suddenly gone. Supply issues I assume. max amps 30 I believe.
The other option is the Pololu G2 High-Power Motor Driver 18v25. It looks like there are outputs for a clutch. Anyone have ideas on this?

Thanks for any help.
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#3
(2022-01-20, 03:26 AM)Les Noble Wrote: More info: Strangely the manual has no info on amp usage only fuse recommendation. 5A for clutch power supply and 30A for motor.
I hooked up to 12V and clutch pulls 1.05A at 14V. Freewheeling motor pulls 1.07. Pushing my thumb on drive pulls 3.44A.
If I run the motor again and if I was able to stop (stall?) the drive with friction, would that tell me the max amps?
The rudder is off the boat so can't do a better load test.
The pypilot motor controller has a clutch output option, but max amps is 15.
I was looking at the high power motor controller, but is suddenly gone. Supply issues I assume. max amps 30 I believe.
The other option is the Pololu G2 High-Power Motor Driver 18v25. It looks like there are outputs for a clutch. Anyone have ideas on this?

Thanks for any help.

Hi,
are your looking only for something to drive the clutch or the whole autopilot including the clutch ???

My setup is: Pypilot on Pi zero W dirving an Arduino nano runnig the motor.ino
That Arduino nano drives the polou G2 over RC ( I don´t know if the one you mention is RC-Capable, I guess you can
set motor.ino to ruan any Pololu, but I´m not sure
 
And the Nano (not the Pololu) also dirves the Clutch with an Transistor and SSD-Relay.

There is an erlier post where I discribe more detailed how it is working on my Nicholson 44
.
I frist started with some LED´s red/green and yellow for the clutch directly to the nano.
Then I used cheap relays 4 for an H-Bridge to move the autopilot and one more for the clutch, also directly to the
Nano.

In both cases the software motor.ino on the nano was set do H-bridge.

Aftertwards in my final setting the motor.in was set to RC and the Nano drives the Pololu and the clutch.

Don´t forget for safty: some end-swiches for the rudder or rudder feedback or both.
The end-swiches can go to the nano or in my case to the pololu.

I guess there must be a way to go directly from the pypilot without nano to the pololu, but the recuired
changes in software are far above my possibiitys  and also mean you can no simpel upgrade anymore to newer versions of pypilot.

Good fun
Andreas
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