Powering Raspberry Pi and motor controller from single source whilst allowing battery charging

Hi All,

I’m a noob to this and probably have ambitions above my abilities, but am looking for the ability to run a raspberry pi (5v of course), a motor controller (I would prefer ability to power 4 DC motors at ~1.2A) and some servos from a single source (likely 2x18650 batteries, or 7.4v lipo)

At the moment the chassis has two motors with the following spec:

•Voltage Range: 6V-12V

•No-load Speed: 170-350RPM

•Nominal Voltage: DC 12V

•No-load Current: 100mA.

I have found options of a single board that will output 5v safely to power the RPi and the battery voltage (7v-10v) to the motors and also power some servos (pan/tilt camera).

I have also found seperate motor controller and servo hats.

The first single board option is simple but restrictive for future projects and the second really requires two power supplies with the pre-built components I can find (or understand).

To complicate things I would like to charge the battery as I provide power to the raspberry pi. If I were to use a powerboost 1000c I would be restricted to 5v input which obviously wouldn’t power motors.

I can’t find the right names of items to search for something that would allow charging at 7.4v for the single board motor/servo solution, or how to connect modules or find one that would allow two outputs with charging.

I understand that I could use UBECs but putting those in line etc I don’t know if I get adequate protection. I know it has to be off the shelf workable because I’m far to knew to electronics to understand wiring diagrams etc.

Can anyone help please? Let me know if you have any more questions.

Thanks

It is exceedingly rare (I have never encountered one) for the two USB outputs of a powerbank not to connected directly together and fed from one dc-dc converter. Even when the two outputs are marked with different current ratings it just means they have different resistors on the data lines to indicate to the powered devices how much current they can take.