Arduino Motor Control

Community General Discussions
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1

I have just purchased a new robot chassis for future projects to be built on. Heres a link...

http://www.trossenrobotics.com/store/p/3172-Robby-RP5-Chassis-Only.aspx

i am unable to find very much info on the motors in the chassis, but i am wandering what sort of motor controler i will need. all i know is that it uses 2 x 9Vdc motors that are run of 6AA cells. im using an Arduino as a controller and would like somthing thats relitivly easy to code for.

all sugestions are apriciated.

2

You could buy some motor

You could buy some motor shield… (i’ve never done this)

Or make your own H-bridge out of Darlingtons or Tip 120 or Relays

Lot’s of options … depends on what you want… the coding will nearly be the same for all interfaces for the motor

To control most motors interfaces you typically only need 2 bits of data

eg. Simple H Bridge

00 - stop
01 - go forward
10 - go backward
11 - not allowed

or Simple Relay

00 - power off / direction forward
01 - power off/ direction backward
10 - power on / direction forward
11 - power on / direction backward

Clear as Mud?

3

From Arexx engineering, the
From Arexx engineering, the manufacturers of the base, there is some info on the newer RP6 platform that suggests that a 2 A continuous, 3 A peak device will work as an h-bridge. So an L298 board, or a TPIC0108 or TPIC0107 based baord could work to drive these motors. Arexx used a small P over N MOSFET h-bridge in their boards for this design.

4

So woud a motor controler

So would a motor controler like this work?

http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1110

5

Yes an Arduino could be used

Yes an Arduino could be used to control a motor through that I believe, but it seems a bit over-priced and overly complicated,

I guess you would save 1 bit if you controll the motor with a single serial line - but the programming becomes more complicated. Not to mention the Arduino does PWM already - so your motor driver does not need to (unless you want to offload that to dumber hardware)

There are single chip H bridge circuits - that is what robologist is probably referring to - typically these are 2 bit controlled too.

Now the short answer:

Yes you could make that work, but personally I don’t think its worth it - check out the references robologist made :slight_smile:

6

another option

ok ive been looking around and based on whats been said i think this is a pretty good option

http://www.robotshop.ca/solarbotics-l298-motor-driver-kit-3.html

it contains a L298 motor driver ic and can run motors up to 4A. id rather buy this whole package than have to go around buying bits and pieces one by one.

7

Adafruit Motor Shield for Arduino

Adafruit has a Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield for Arduino Kit

http://www.adafruit.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=17_21&products_id=81

I just bought a base from Robotshop today also. We are going to use it for the Roboduino http://www.curiousinventor.com/kits/roboduino. We tried to make our own base with several designs that didnt work out. Mostly due to lack of tools. The one I bought is:

http://www.robotshop.us/robotshop-rover-arduino-tank-kit-2.html

We are going to see if we can alter it a bit to use Servos instead of the DC motors.

8

Adafruit shield

i have considered this shield but i dont think it can provide enough current to each motor, i also cant find a UK shop that suplies it and shipping from the US is ridiculous. i think this is the best option so far:

http://www.robotshop.ca/solarbotics-l298-motor-driver-kit-3.html

but im gona wait till the base arives so i can check the power consumption.

9

Hi McDuino,I am curious as

Hi McDuino,

I am curious as to whether the motor you mentioned worked for you? it seems ideal for the motors i have as well (which is a DC 7.2V, Max Draw 4amp): http://www.roboticsconnection.com/p-51-dc-gearhead-robot-motor.aspx

thanks