Hi,
I am trying to run 4 motors connected to Digital Pins 4,5,6 and 7. For the 4th and 5th two motors are connected and respectively for the 5th and 6th. I am here using my own Motor controller with a L293D chip. It worked fine before with only two motors but now when I connect 4 motors the Arduino LED on-board flashes and dims and the Arduino restarts. But when it is connected to the USB it kind of works as the motors spin slowly. The batteries I'm using here are 3 Lithium ion batteries which have 12V and 3600 mAh when combined. Also, I cannot use 8 volts for this as the Onboard LED straight up goes dark. Power is supplied to the vin pin. What should I do in order to fix this?
Always show us a good schematic of your proposed circuit.
Show us a good image of your ‘actual’ wiring.
Give links to components.
Seems you're adding the Ah rating of the batteries.
Three 3700mAh LiPo batteries in series is about 12volt, but still 3700mAh.
Most likely a power problem.
Seems the batteries can't keep up with the current draw of the motors.
Bad/thin wiring and/or poor connections could also do this.
Leo..
Hi,
Oh sorry, yeah my bad. Then i guess the mAh should be like 3600 in this case. But still its enough to do spin 4 motors right?
Wdym by this. 12V is more than enough to spin 4 motors at like max speed. But this still doesnt do the job. It worked fine before (completely different setup) with same wiring. But it doesn't work now. The old setup and the new setup they both dont work now.
It worked before with the old setup with the same wiring. Im pretty sure this is not the problem. Is it a fault in the Arduino or something else?
Thanks for your concern.
And please reply this is urgent as i have to build this for a school project.
Sounds like a bad connection.
the thing is it doesn't work with the previous one too with the same wiring now...
Kindly troubleshoot your circuit part by part. At first remove everything from the setup. Just test if the Arduino's signal reaches the motor driver IC. If the IC and Arduino is working perfectly, then connect only one motor. If it runs successfully, then connect another. Proceed this way.
Hi,
Yeah i did this. I switched ICs to see if they are working. They were working. I checked the motors too and they were working in direct current from the battery pack. But still when connected to the terminals the motors doesnt even spin or whirr. But i noticed something. The l293D IC is getting heated up quickly. With all the three i used, they all heated up pretty quickly. But they were still working.
Thanks for your concern
That 40-50 year old IC was fine in the 1970s, but today is one of the very worst choices for motor control. Pololu has the best selection of modern, much more efficient motor drivers.
Hi,
But the thing is i already chose the base to be of that 16pin. So no changing of that. What should i do to fix this.
Thanks for your concern.
Live within the limitations of your choice, and have fun!
So, no fixing here? Im asking this cuz it worked fine with two motors before. But all of a sudden it fails.
Gosh, what could have changed?
Consider using two L293s for four motors.
Thanks, ill try to use that.
But the thing is now that it doesnt even work with one motor. What should i do?
Take your setup apart and carefully rewire it with one motor, to make sure that you don't have bad connections.
If it still doesn't work, then possibly the Arduino, the L293, or the motor has been damaged.
BTW breadboards are for temporary experiments with low power logic circuitry, and the tracks will burn from the high current, if you try to use them with motors. So if you are using a breadboard, check for burned tracks.
So, im not using breadboards here.
I did what you said.
In the first scenario, i noticed the onboard led wasn't lighted
Second picture(ill post it down), when i connected the LED to the intended motor pins it blinks rapidly. I never programmed it to be blinking. And the onboard LED lights up faintly.
Pretty sure the board is broken.
Driving an LED by port pins, without using a current limiting resistor tends to burn out the port pins.
So do you think the board is broken? And how would you think it should have been broken.