power trouble

[helio905]

I build robots in spare time. But this is my first on board pc. The only way I
know to power it is a 12 volt car battery and a 12vdc/110 inverter. I was
apperent that you loose alot of power this way. I know the input to the
main board must be perfect. Any power saving tips?

 

[ante1]

Hi helio,

For every step you lose energy, this is not the way to go. I would recommend only one step conversion to get the highest possible efficiency. Use two smaller (half the size of the car battery) 12 V deep cycle batterys in series (24 V) and buy a new PSU for the PC. Here is one example for ATX PC:  http://www.zantech.com.au/zantech/power-supply-atx-24v-dc/

I hope I make sense. 

 

[helio905]

Thanks for the advice. And yes I noticed even the car battery does not last
long whith the pc and drive motors not to mention all the other loads I am
runing. I wonder though if I do this like you say, if the overcurrent will shut
the pc down every time my robot runs it drive motors. They use alot of
curent. They are powerwheels gearboxes.

 

[ante1]

If the load peaks is too high for the batterys internal resistance the voltage will drop and the computer might shut down. You should consider larger capacity batterys.

 

[Tony_Stoynov]

Hi,
why you used a standard PC board, why you dont use some industril on board PC. Many of them use only 12 or 12 and 5 V. Something like a Arbor EmCore 615, this is Via based PC. Has a many other company that produce this type of board, they is not very big, used only one power suuply, n some case two, and is mre reliable. The ony one disadvantagem the price is higer

 

[ante1]

Depending on the length of the surges from the motors the PC can be protected from shut downs simply by adding a diode and a capacitor to pick up the slack.