Hello, I'm not confident in my ability to power circuitry and was wondering if what I am thinking makes sense. At this point I own no physical devices, but it is all just design and theory, and I'll need to buy the parts some time in December this year. (I do actually have a small micro controller board to control the whole thing right now though.)
My problem consists of powering a tubular push type solenoid and a DC stepper motor. These are both on the small scale: I can't use more than 170mmx170mm area for my whole system. I only need about 10 lbs of force from the solenoid, and the stroke will likely be less than 10mm (I think but not positive): the thing will be used for kicking a golf ball. 50% duty cycle is what my mechanical engineer friend told me to we were planning on using for the solenoid, I really don't know why, but I'll take his word for it. I believe my battery will be about 10-12V DC. I've not worked with solenoids or motors before (other than basic motors used in an academic, follow the steps, environment.)
I believe to get enough of a force out of a solenoid I will require more than 10-12V, so I've read about DC to DC boost converters which I think would be what I'd have to use. (Or charging capacitor banks to hundreds of voltages, but I don't know if I need such high voltages, nor how to do such a thing.) Once boosted, I suppose using a transistor (pmos I'd guess) would be used as a switch to source the voltage to the solenoid. From reading other posts, it seems I need to also use diodes in parallel to the solenoid to protect the circuitry. Also from reading other posts I saw advice to just use a solenoid driver chip, but I'm not sure if that is what I should use or not.
So that's pretty much it. Any advice or help would be appreciated. In case you're wondering why I don't know any of this, I've been taught primarily in programming and logic design as a computer engineer, and now on this project I am having to also play the role as a electrical eng major with knowledge in power systems...
Thanks in advance, and for at least reading.
-Dooley
My problem consists of powering a tubular push type solenoid and a DC stepper motor. These are both on the small scale: I can't use more than 170mmx170mm area for my whole system. I only need about 10 lbs of force from the solenoid, and the stroke will likely be less than 10mm (I think but not positive): the thing will be used for kicking a golf ball. 50% duty cycle is what my mechanical engineer friend told me to we were planning on using for the solenoid, I really don't know why, but I'll take his word for it. I believe my battery will be about 10-12V DC. I've not worked with solenoids or motors before (other than basic motors used in an academic, follow the steps, environment.)
I believe to get enough of a force out of a solenoid I will require more than 10-12V, so I've read about DC to DC boost converters which I think would be what I'd have to use. (Or charging capacitor banks to hundreds of voltages, but I don't know if I need such high voltages, nor how to do such a thing.) Once boosted, I suppose using a transistor (pmos I'd guess) would be used as a switch to source the voltage to the solenoid. From reading other posts, it seems I need to also use diodes in parallel to the solenoid to protect the circuitry. Also from reading other posts I saw advice to just use a solenoid driver chip, but I'm not sure if that is what I should use or not.
So that's pretty much it. Any advice or help would be appreciated. In case you're wondering why I don't know any of this, I've been taught primarily in programming and logic design as a computer engineer, and now on this project I am having to also play the role as a electrical eng major with knowledge in power systems...
Thanks in advance, and for at least reading.
-Dooley