If people want to connect robots and link to the construct sim or robot academy, how do people keep them powered up? Not sure how long a jetbot or robot car or drone would last running on battery. Do you have recharging stations? Would love a course on this!
Hi @brianlmerrittcons ,
I have had the opportunity to work on an actual turtlebot3 and can tell you that these come with an option to directly plug into wall socket power source ( the battery is removed ).
Benefits of connecting to wall socket (without battery):
- This helps overcome the 1.5 hrs of battery life that turtlebot provides and we can run it for hours.
Cons of connecting to wall socket:
- Unless the wiring is tied up in a clean manner, perpendicular to the robot, it interferes with the laser scan. it also makes it impossible to drive it using teleop since the wheels tend to get stuck on the power cable.
I am sure the @staff will be able to give you a more detailed answer.
1 Like
Perfect thanks! I was wondering why I saw videos of turtlebots moving around with a dangling wire - that now makes sense!
One of my (too many) projects is to connect an Agilex Limo and also JetBots to the charging station of a Neato Botvac as that outputs 24VDC on an already proven safe charging platform and used charging stations are quite cheap.
But first I have to learn much more about coding robots, hence my joining here 
Hi @brianlmerrittcons ,
This is great news. Do share your projects on the ROSjects so that we can also check it out and maybe even contribute improvements.
Best,
Joseph
Like @Joseph1001 said, we have the TurtleBot3 in our lab powered by a wire coming from the ceiling, and some rotating connectors to make sure the cable doesn’t tangle up.
We also have another robot (Robotnik RB1) for enterprise licenses, which uses a combination of perception, navigation and a tracking algorithm to detect and approach a charging platform.
This topic was automatically closed after 7 days. New replies are no longer allowed.