Thanks, those are some very helpful points! Especially that the voltage drop is non-linear, and it's not worth the risk of trying to squeeze out that extra bit of time.

Thank you!

Nice!

Ooh that's a tough one, which I don't personally have much experience in. In terms of live measurement, you could probably find a chip that has an accessible ammeter and log that with an Arduino or Pi, and process it later? This was just the first thing that came up in a search for me but it seems like it would do the job well au.element14.com/dfrobot/sen0291/i2c-digital-wattmeter-gravity/dp/3769910 For the simulation, I've never tried it but I'm sure people have made Gazebo plugins (public or private) that use the speed and torque of the simulated motors along with a model of the motor and the battery to simulate power consumption. I suspect you'd just model the CPU as a constant draw (measured using something like the above). Sorry I can't be of more help (and for the late reply!)

Hey mate, sorry for the late reply, great question. I've never personally used the Qwiic system but I'd have a few thoughts: - One regulator will be fine as long as it's powerful enough - Many of the Qwiic devices will be low-current, and so daisy-chaining them is not an issue (and is obviously just convenient, especially given how I2C works) - The cables may be a limiting factor anyway. The FAQ suggests a conservative limit of ~226mA, potentially up to 1.4A www.sparkfun.com/qwiic#faqs - I imagine that if you really needed more current, you could build a "power injector" cable to prevent too much running through individual boards - As you've said, be aware of any level conversions required Hope that helps!

While you COULD run a setup similar to this off 8xAA, you will find that their current rating and also capacity is extremely limiting. Instead you are probably better off using 6V (or even smaller) motors and 4xAA (or even two banks in parallel) and making sure your robot is fairly light to reduce the load on the motors and thus the current. I can't recommend any particular batteries, but note that if you use rechargeable batteries they will typically have a lower voltage. E.g. NiMH is 1.2V so 4x would be 4.8 and actually needs a boost to get to 5V. Alternatively 5x1.2=6V. I hope that helps

@@ArticulatedRobotics Hello thank you!!! I have a DC/DC voltage regulator (12v input, 5v/5a output). If I use 6v motors but 8 AA batteries would this all work out? Should I run the motors off the output of the DC/DC converter for it to receive the necessary voltage?

Not sure if just dropping the motor voltage but changing anything else would prove to be beneficial.

Hmm, yeah you'd definitely want to use a different regulator in this instance (if yours is only 12V in), but no need for a regulator between the batteries and the motor. DC motor voltage ratings aren't usually very solid, you can run them at other voltages but they just won't perform as designed. So you could run 2x4x1.5VAA (i.e. 6V but paralleled for more current). Current is going to be your main problem, so you need to drop the voltage. If everything was 100% efficient it probably wouldn't make a difference - your 12V motors might use less current and your 12V-5V reg would not use more current than 6V-5V, but in practice I think you'd find the lower voltage set up to work better. You might just have to experiment!

Haha thanks, I was overdue for a cut!

Hi, the context here (I believe, I don't recall the quote) is about the WIRE rating (or possibly motors) in an ELV DC circuit, where voltage effectively doesn't matter. The issue with wires is them breaking down due to the thermal load, which is due to the voltage DROP over the wire rather than the absolute voltage. This is proportional to the current squared and the resistance (P=IV, V=IR, P = IIR). So 5V@1A vs 5V@10A is a huge difference to the wiring, whereas 1V@5A vs 10V@5A is basically the same. If you were putting hundreds of volts into it then the voltage would come into play. But yes of course components can be VERY sensitive to voltages and you should always make sure those are correct :)