Questions about Lengthy Wiring
Reviewing the image attachment, can anyone tell me if this is feasible?
From one source, I want to contain the power supply and the microcontroller used to control all three boxes.
Each of the three "boxes" contains the following:
I would like to be able to do the following:
The minimum distance for wiring to the outside boxes will be about 13 feet. Is this feasible?
Thanks,
Scope
From one source, I want to contain the power supply and the microcontroller used to control all three boxes.
Each of the three "boxes" contains the following:
- infrared headlights
- motor controller
- 2 motors
I would like to be able to do the following:
- send & receive information using infrared headlights
- provide 7.2V power to the motor controllers
- provide instructions to the motor controllers
The minimum distance for wiring to the outside boxes will be about 13 feet. Is this feasible?
Thanks,
Scope
914 x 516 - 112K
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John R.
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Thank you.
With the revised configuration (see image below), would I still need capacitors?
Whit knows what I'm doing. Not going to be a dog but good guess and funny.
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I changed the design - made it simpler - here's a concept sketch (see attachment below).
Thank you
How do I find out how to accomplish this?
I don't recall anything in the documents I've read so far that mention "lengthy" wires used for sending & receiving signals.
Thanks,
Scope
For your signal wiring, I would suggest STP (Screened [noparse][[/noparse]or Shielded] Twisted Pair). This cable is just like ethernet cable but has a foil wrapped around the 4 pairs (also comes in other number of pairs) with a drain wire in contact with the foil shield to be grounded. This cable is used in electrically noisey industrial environments for networks and can be found at surplus shops ie wierdstuffwarehouse.com. You might want to only ground all the signal cables at one end only ie where they all come together at one central controller to prevent "ground loops" for lengths over about 4 feet. On longer runs you might have to use "differential line driver/receivers" if EMI/RFI is a problem, but try first without and see how it works.
For your power lines, use some larger gauge wire than you need. On long runs you will have line loss (voltage drop) because of the ohms/foot of the wire. If your on a short budget, find some "monster" speaker wire from a car stereo at the auto dismantler. Put a couple larger electrolytic caps of 1000 uF (12v or greater if your using 7.2v / mind the polarity) or so in to buffer/smooth the DC at each slave controller to handle surge current in parallel with a .01-.001 uF polyester cap to shunt high frequency noise on the DC at the controller.
rpdb
To keep it a little simpler (I hope) I plan on using a battery source at each box so the only thing needing to span ~5' will be the signal wires. I'll try to figure out what you're talking about and implement this into my design.
Happy roboting,
Scope