12v Motor Control

You need a dual H-bridge motor driver. Mosfet ones are best, they run cool and have low voltage drop. I suggest something like http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1213. The motor shield from Rugged Circuits looks good to me too.

First off I would like to thank everybody for your help.

Also,
would I program the Dual MC33926 Motor Driver Carrier just like a
SN754410…
http://www.robotshop.com/sn754410-dual-motor-driver-2.html

Thanks,
Drew Davis

I just spotted that Pololu does a shield version of that motor driver. See http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/2503. The Resources tab on that page has a link to a user's guide, which includes a sample program.

I did not even know that there were motor shields so thanks for the info!

Also, what do you think about this sparkfun one I found. It is $10 cheaper so if you think it is good I will probably purchase it as I don't have extra money setting around.

http://www.robotshop.com/sfe-ardumoto-motor-shield-arduino.html

Thanks,
Drew Davis

drewdavis:
Also, what do you think about this sparkfun one I found. It is $10 cheaper so if you think it is good I will probably purchase it as I don't have extra money setting around.

I would avoid anything based on bipolar chips such as the L298N (as in that one) or L293. Those chips have a high voltage drop (which also means that they run hot) and no current limiting. They are OK for very small motors if you can tolerate the voltage drop.

I'm worried about getting the pololu because it looks very hard to program while the SFE seems extremely easy to program.

The motors would be under little stress, would be going pretty slow, and would draw less than 1 A. Also, they would not be running for more than 120 seconds. I could add a fan if needed.

How much do you think the voltage would drop under the circumstance I listed above? Robot Shop said the shield could handle 2amps per channel so I would be using half of it's power.

Thanks,
Drew Davis

The datasheet for the L298N will tell you how much they drop. The total voltage drop is the sum of the "Source saturation voltage" and the "Sink saturation voltage".

As you know I'm new to the Arduino (and electrical stuff) and I do not understand the data sheet completely.

  1. When it says the "typical voltage loss" does that mean that I can rely on the fact that it will typically be that much lower or are their test results not practical when it come to real applications?

  2. What exactly is voltage loss. I know that it means you lose voltage, but when do you lose it? Do you lose it when power goes into the shield, and can combat that with a bigger battery, or can you combat voltage loss with a good program?

Thanks for all of your help,
Drew Davis

Link to data sheet...
http://www.robotshop.com/content/PDF/l298-h-bridge-data-sheet-dev-09815.pdf

drewdavis:
As you know I'm new to the Arduino (and electrical stuff) and I do not understand the data sheet completely.

  1. When it says the "typical voltage loss" does that mean that I can rely on the fact that it will typically be that much lower or are their test results not practical when it come to real applications?

It means exactly what it says. The voltage drop will typically be somewhere near the "typical" figure, but it could be as high as the maximum figure.

drewdavis:
2. What exactly is voltage loss. I know that it means you lose voltage, but when do you lose it? Do you lose it when power goes into the shield, and can combat that with a bigger battery, or can you combat voltage loss with a good program?

It is the difference between the voltage supplied to the H-bridge and the voltage appearing across the motor when the H-bridge is on. You can combat it by increasing the voltage going in to the H-bridge. The lost power is dissipated as heat.

Thank you for being so helpful!

I will probably get the one you suggested.

Thanks,
Drew Davis

Sorry to bring this up again, but I found another shield that is super cheap and looks really good. Plus it will interface with my grove starter kit sensors! The only problem is I can not find a data sheet, so I don't know what the voltage loss is. When I click the links tab it just says "loading…" I was wondering if anybody knows about how much voltage it will lose.

Thanks,
Drew Davis

http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/motor-shield-p-913.html?cPath=132_134

It's based on the L298, so it will have a high voltage drop.

Thanks!

I was looking through different motor control posts and I saw that you recommended this controller…

SparkFun Motor Driver - Dual TB6612FNG (1A) - ROB-14451 - SparkFun Electronics?

Would It work in my case?

Thanks,
Drew Davis

Yes, the specs for that motor driver would work for you according to the link to your motors that you provided. This is the motor driver that I use. It's not a shield so you'll have to do a bit of wiring, but it's not bad. There are quite a few tutorials if you do a search, and someone wrote a library as well.

Thank you!

Do you know what the voltage loss is?

From the data sheet linked to on the Sparkfun page, it's 0.5V typical, 0.7V maximum @ 1A.

The easy the best and not too too high is the saber tooth. All the guys at the teck use them to run there battle bots

Sabertooth 2X25 V2 regenerative dual motor driver.

www.dimensionengineering.com/products/sabertooth2x25

sorry not sure how to set a link.

regards, James