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MY EXPERIENCE IN AUTONOMOUS ROBOTICS

Power Supply
Adapter
SMPS
Power Supply Circuit

POWER SUPPLY

We require DC supply for our circuits which should be obtained from 230V,50Hz AC line. There is two way to get DC supply, one from DC battery and second from adapter or SMPS. Normally we use adapter for our circuits. When you go for troubleshooting power supply is another headache in robotics after sensor problems. The best way to avoid this problem is to use one SMPS instead of adapter. Normally adapters available for 12V,500mA ratings. With that you can run DC motors. For beginners this 12V,500mA adapter is enough, but better you try to get a second hand SMPS. The main thing you have to note when you buy one adapter is that

1) it should have variable shaft to get voltages from 3 to 12V.

2) It should be of a good company.

3) The light(LED) of adapter should be good

My adapter is a 3V to 12V variable adapter,500mA. There is one LED over the adapter. This LED will be useful when you troubleshoot circuits to detect short circuits, overload detection etc... But some adapter's LED won't be able to detect short circuits. I have a Panasonic adapter(black color) which is able to detect short ckt, but my friend has Panasonic adapter(White in color) which is not able to detect short circuit, overload detection. Suppose if you short circuit +ve and -ve of adapter the LED will OFF, if some overload comes then the brightness of the LED decreases which will be helpful in troubleshooting. But better acquire an SMPS which will become shut down when short circuit occurs. If you have an SMPS then no problems with power supply occurs, better not to use the output of adapter of your Computer, buy one second hand SMPS even though it is of a 486 computer. But when you are making robots for competition in which robots run on battery, you should be careful because power supply problem also creates and your robots won't acquire the desired speed. If you are using SMPS and replace SMPS with battery in robots, you won't be getting better speeds because SMPS have good current driving capability while battery won't have it. Even SMPS of Pentium1 systems have a power capability of about 40W.