Hi guys,

I modified my 16 year old RC car to run with an Arduino, but I have problems to get enough power for the motors.
My current setup includes a L298N Double H Bridge Driver Board, that runs a DC motor and a pseudo servo. It takes the power of 4 AA 1.2V batteries, exactly as before my modifications. But the wheels barely turn in the air, on ground nothing happens at all.
How is it possible that now there seems to be too less power? Was there some kind of circuitry that amplified the voltage, and why can't my L298N do the same?
How should I choose new batteries, maybe some kind of LiPos, and what voltage should they have?

Sadly I don't know much about the motors since they're really old and have no identification info on them. I tested the DC motor with 6V straight to it and it ran fine for 2 minutes without even getting warm.
If it helps: I measured the amperage that went into the driver board, and it was ~40mA with the motors idling and ~115mA when they were supposed to turn.

 

So I found out that the board actually makes a voltage drop of a whopping 2 Volts, so there's not much left for the motors. Going to look for some new batteries then.