Hb25 motor control and chevy tahoe wiper motors

garyg

I'm about to start on my first differential 2 wheel drive platform experiment.
I have two Chevy Tahoe wiper motors so far.
I'm thinking about using two HB25 motor controllers so that maybe I can vary the speed of these wiper motors.

I would like the project to go something like this:
1 - mount my wiper motors to wheels
2 - purchase two HB25 motor controllers
3 - Purchase one of the Propeller boards with which to do logic and control of the platform.
4 - Use Sharp GP2YOA21 Distance measuring sensors as crash protection.
5 - Use Ping sensors to measure distance

What I'm looking for is comments on the use of Automotive Wiper motors.
It appears that the Wiper motors are of a very single purpose use design, but seem to be pretty robust.
I can make these motors drive when connecting 12Vdc to the proper terminals.
I believe I will not be able to use the wiper motor control board because of wanting to use the HB25 to
control motor direction and speed.

doggiedoc

Are they continuous rotation? Assuming so, the back and forth duty as wipers is controlled by polarity reversal I assume.

Assuming continuous rotation, HB25s should work just fine I'd think.

Sounds like a fun project!

Doc

kwinn

Sounds like a pretty good plan as long as the motor torque can handle the weight of the robot. I have only used a wiper motor once to run a 300 sample conveyor on an instrument. It worked well and lasted a long time.

I am not sure about the wiper control board, but wipers do generally have at least 2 speeds and travel in both directions. If they are included with the motors it may be worth taking a good look at them to see if they can be used in place of the HB25. Of course the control programming will be more involved if you do that.

garyg

Hi
What I've been working on so far is in understanding the motors.
Doggiedoc -
To answer your question of (Are they continuous rotation? Assuming so, the back and forth duty as wipers is controlled by polarity reversal )
The Chevy Tahoe motors are continuous rotation, The motors always rotate in one direction But
The circuit board that controls them is Very windshield wiper specific and single purpose.
The motors always spin continuously when under power.
The back and forth swing of the wipers is handled by linkage connected to a crank shaft similar to what drives the old steam powered locomotives.

Kwin -
To respond to your statement of (Sounds like a pretty good plan as long as the motor torque can handle the weight of the robot.)
When I am driving these wiper motors, they appear to have "Rip Your Fingers Off Torque"
After I was able to get these motors to run, I mounted them on a piece of plywood and clamped them to my bench.
Although I hesitate to say, I grabbed the bell crank on the motors and tried to stop their rotation.
I could not stop the motors by hand, KIDS DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. I really believe that wiper motors can do damage to
the human body.

These wiper motors are two speed wipers.
The wiper control board controls the speed that they run at.
In the control board there is a master relay that requires the motor to be running in Low speed approx 42RPM
before engaging the high speed of 60RPM.

After looking for specific information on the motors on the internet, I could find Nothing about the construction of these motors.
I took a photo of both sides of the control board and after scaling the photos to a similar size
I did a cadd tracing of the circuit board side, made a mirror image and planted the image on the component side of the board.
I used the drawing to help me understand the T4, T5 and T7 connections which are direct to the motor.

I'll be placing an order for HB25 Motor controllers this weekend.
While I can't be sure they will successfully drive these motors, I can always use the Non Auto Scrapyard approach to this project
as long as My testing does not destroy the HB25 controllers.

Thanks for your comments and any other comments are VERY WELCOME.

doggiedoc

You'll be very pleased with the HB25s.