UR robot with battery supply

Technical Questions
1

Greetings,

I represent Research Institute, in Brazil. We are developing a mobile robot that integrates a UR5 on top.
Our project requires the development of the smallest possible system. But the UR5 controller imposes a problem, due to its size. We are currently searching a way to use the UR5 arm, without using all of Universal Robotics control box (trying to simplify or reduce its size).

Did you ever experienced the same difficulty? How did you solve it?

Right now, any information, regarding the use of UR robots on mobile plataforms, will be welcome.

I appreciate your help, previously!

2

You should contact your local UR Partner, and ask for directions wrt. battery installation and OEM versions.

3

Hello JBM.

Unfortunately, the local UR partner couldn’t solve my problem. I wish you could provide me detailed support.

In fact, no one was able to address the solution.

4

All you need is 12V and 48V, to power the two boards in the controller box.

As you are building mobile robotics, I assume you got battery connections and battery safety under control already, and I then don’t see where the problem should be. You can take the two boards out of the box, and put them into your own, making sure they got sufficient cooling, and then you should be good to go, and probably void all kinds of warranty as you go along too. :slight_smile:

If you haven’t taken apart the controller box yet, you could take a look at the repair manual, under the topic showing how to replace a power supply, it brings you pretty much all the way through taking everything out of the box.

2 Likes
5

Hello Michael.

Thanks for your support.

Battery safety is already under control.
I will try to describe my problem with details.

UR battery installation guide suggests the use of a 1kW 48V power supply. But, after several tests, I have seen that my application require way less than 400W.
Therefore, I have been trying to power the UR with a DC/DC boost converter, of 400W.
But, as someone mentioned here https://forum.universal-robots.com/t/is-it-possible-to-modify-the-brake-releasing-sequence-for-battery-supplied-project/549 before, the board draws a huge current when powering on (about 10A - surge).

I have tried adding capacitors and inductors to filter the surge, but I was unable to solve it. The system didn’t pass from ‘power off’ to ‘power on’, through the sequence - energizing the arm 48V power bus and then releasing the brakes.

The 1kW 48V converter suggested by UR occupy a huge volume and won’t be fully demanded during operation. The converter will be oversized (in power and size). That’s why I considered using a 500W converter (from the same model as the 1kW one).

I ran these tests without the converter I wish to use (SD-500L-48). I tried using an external adjustable power supply, able to provide 438W, which failed to power up the robot.

Will the SD-500L-48 converter succeed? Do you think I will be able to know only after testing?

6

Moderation:
Moved to a separate topic, as unrelated to general electrical interfaces.

7

i think maybe you need a prechagrge circuit for Robot,If the power supply transient power is not enough, it will cause voltage sag, resulting in the machine can not start properly, adding a pre-charging circuit can solve this problem, I hope it is helpful to you