Revision History: As of July 11, 2022 – this board now comes in STEMMA QT format. Functionality and schematic remain the same; physical shape has changed to make it plug-and-play, much easier to use
The DRV2605 from TI is a fancy little motor driver. Rather than controlling a stepper motor or DC motor, it’s designed specifically for controlling haptic motors – buzzers and vibration motors. Normally one would just turn those kinds of motors on and off, but this driver has the ability to have various effects when driving a vibe motor. For example, ramping the vibration level up and down, ‘click’ effects, different buzzer levels, or even having the vibration follow a musical/audio input.
This chip is controlled over I2C – after initialization, a ‘string’ of multiple effects can be strung together in the chips’ memory and then triggered to actuate in a row. The built-in effects are much much nicer than just ‘on’ and ‘off’ and will make your haptic project a way nicer feeling.
We added an onboard 3.3V regulator and logic-level shifting circuitry, making it a perfect choice for interfacing with any 3V or 5V microcontroller or computer, such as Arduino or Raspberry Pi. We’ve got both Arduino (C/C++) and CircuitPython (Python 3) libraries available so you can use it with any microcontroller like Arduino, ESP8266, Metro, etc, or with Raspberry Pi or other Linux computers, thanks to Blinka (our CircuitPython library support helper).
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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