I am looking for a way to control vehicles somewhat larger than typical hobby stuff. Say the size of a small lawn tractor.
This would be for steering so I am thinking about using something like a more muscular servo motor.
I'm aware of hobby style giant servos. They might work but not sure if they would be beefy enough.
Industrial servo motors seem to be quite different from hobby stuff. I have one that's rated 128 VDC, has 5 wires running to the motor and a bunch more off the attached encoder. No real idea what's going on here.
Searches on servo motor control bring up mostly hobby information which I am familiar with.
There is the open servo project which might provide part of a solution. If I can beef up the control so that it can handle something like a cordless drill motor.
I recenly built a remote control tricycle. I handled the steering using a regular DC motor controller (Victor 883) and got around the limit switch problem by building a small spring loaded clutch. (Some details on my web site under "builders log".)
But I don't really like this solution as there is no automatic centering feature.
Any other ideas? What do those guys like Mythbusters do for remote control full size cars?
Thanks for any help.
DOC
Have robots. Will travel.