Arduino Deuminalove+XBee sheild to drive DC motor

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Interfacing
1

Hi ,i need help in controlling 3 4.5v DC motors to drive my blimp.

Currently, my arduino Deuminalove board is connected with XBees(TX and RX) with a sparkfun XBee shield.

Arduino is powered using a single lipo 7.4v battery.

Its able to power up an LED from an output(i used pin 10) via serial comms but it is not able to drive a DC motor from the same output pin.

(ive tested both current/voltage ouputs on board and it says 2Amp and 5v respectively).

How can i get arduino to drive a dc motor(forward and backwards) or 3 dc motors.? Do i need an extra motor sheild or something?

2

You need something called an 'H-bridge', as DC motors draw too much current to be driven from an output pin directly. There are some motor driver shields, but most support only two motors.

You can also get an ESC (electronic speed controller) for each motor, which is what the quadcopter guys do. That way, you can control speed through PWM quite easily, and they're quite cheap. However, I'm not sure there are ESCs that support two directions, which is obviously what you need for your blimp.

Hope that helps or at least gives you a few things to google for :slight_smile: