Arduino is a great starting point for electronics, and with a motor shield it can also be a nice tidy platform for robotics and mechatronics. Here is a design for a full-featured motor shield that will be able to power many simple to medium-complexity projects.
2 connections for 5V ‘hobby’ servos with high-resolution dedicated timer – no jitter!
Up to 4 bi-directional DC motors with individual 8-bit speed selection (so, about 0.5% resolution)
Up to 2 stepper motors (unipolar or bipolar) with single coil, double coil or interleaved stepping.
4 H-Bridges: L293D chipset provides 0.6A per bridge (1.2A peak) with thermal shutdown protection, 4.5V to 36V
Pull down resistors keep motors disabled during power-up
Big terminal block connectors to easily hook up wires (10-22AWG) and power
Arduino reset button brought up top (Diecimila only)
2-pin terminal block to connect external power, for seperate logic/motor supplies
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It would be nice to use this board on simple robot platforms. I noticed
the 6 analog vias. Can you just insert a female header there
to get access to the arduino analog pins? Also, by my count there
are 3 ununsed digital pins. Is that right? Can you get access to them
as well?
yes the 6 analog pins are available and theres a spot you can get to them (and 5v, ground rail) for simple sensors, etc.
there are a few unused digital pins other than the INT0 pin, they’re not easy to get at — wasnt much room 🙁
quick delivered – 10 min to solder, placed on arduinos top, connected to 2 steppers and everything works. 1 step to diy a panobot. i’m an absolute dummi in electronics. if anyone around here, who plans similar things – nice to hear about ….
Soldered up mine today, but didn’t get it to work with my old ATMega8 arduino. Get a freeze when initiating the AF_lib. Guess I have to upgrade to Diecemila if I want to play with this thing…
Neat!
It would be nice to use this board on simple robot platforms. I noticed
the 6 analog vias. Can you just insert a female header there
to get access to the arduino analog pins? Also, by my count there
are 3 ununsed digital pins. Is that right? Can you get access to them
as well?
Nice design. Thanks for making it available.
yes the 6 analog pins are available and theres a spot you can get to them (and 5v, ground rail) for simple sensors, etc.
there are a few unused digital pins other than the INT0 pin, they’re not easy to get at — wasnt much room 🙁
where do i get this and how much. what all can i do with it.
quick delivered – 10 min to solder, placed on arduinos top, connected to 2 steppers and everything works. 1 step to diy a panobot. i’m an absolute dummi in electronics. if anyone around here, who plans similar things – nice to hear about ….
jo
Soldered up mine today, but didn’t get it to work with my old ATMega8 arduino. Get a freeze when initiating the AF_lib. Guess I have to upgrade to Diecemila if I want to play with this thing…
tech support questions -> forums!
thanks 🙂
Hi,
I can’t seem to register on your forum 🙂
I always get an error that I entered the wrong security code thingy…now I ran out of times to register lol!
Anyhow purchased the motor shield and wanted to ask some questions about the motors that I need to use. I should get it soon and get onto testing it!