Help With Simple Problem

[aardvarcus]

Help With Simple Problem-Edited for Clarity

I now believe my post was unclear, so now i will try to clarify.
I have a battery, four motors, and a row of single pole swithes. I would like to flip one switch and have some of the motors run forwards, some backwards, and some stay off. If i ground all the negative leads back to the battery, i can not make them turn backwards. If i ground all the posotive leads, i can not make them run forwards. Is there a way without going to double pole switches? I do not want anything expensive or overly difficult for a newbie to wire. Thanks.


Old post:

I am making an ROV (model submarine) and i have a few wiring questions. I wanted to use a modified playstation controller and i am probably going to soder a board to make diffrent controls. To make it work properly, say when i press button 1, then motor 4 runs forward, 1 runs backwards, and 3 runs forward. I will also have many similar buttons. Since i am using dc motors, i know i have to just switch the polarity, but since i am trying to feed a + to one set and a - to another set, i am unsure of how to wire it up. If i ground the motor's - to the battery, that motor will not work properly in reverse. It seems that i need a switch that connects both a + and -, but that would mean i can not use my contoller. Also i dont want anything fancy or that costs a lot. Is there a way?

Please help.

 

[bananasiong]

H bridge can make DC motor to turn both the directions right?

 

[philba]

to answer your direct question, no, you will need double pole switches if you want to keep the electronics out of motor control.

I feel that I should point out that an HBridge will allow you to do this from a single switch and with some additional electronics, you can run the motor at different speeds which may be a big advantage to your ROV.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

to answer your direct question, no, you will need double pole switches if you want to keep the electronics out of motor control.

I feel that I should point out that an HBridge will allow you to do this from a single switch and with some additional electronics, you can run the motor at different speeds which may be a big advantage to your ROV.

An H-Bridge is essentially a semiconductor DPDT (Double Pole, Double Throw) switch - it's semiconductor nature makes it very suitable for PWM speed control - at the expense of complexity.

A simpler method, in keeping with the question, is to use a DPDT relay, which does a similar job to an H-bridge, but much simpler.