Arduino Uno R3 or ESP32 dev board

Projects General Guidance
1

I am quite new to building my own circuit with Arduino but I want to get into it so I have a small project now. The project involves three TB6600 motor drivers and three on-off-on switches that can be controlled by a microcontroller so need a total 12 GPIO pins. At the moment I am thinking of either using Arduino Uno R3 with ESP-01 or using a ESP32 development board as I also need it to communicate with PC wirelessly. I wonder if there is any advice on the setup.

2

I would use an ESP32 which is not only far more powerful (memory, IO facilities, etc) than the R3 but has onboard WiFi, Bluetooth Classic and BLE - cost about £7 on Ebay in UK

3

The ESP has 3.3V I/O signals. Make sure the TB6600 you buy will work with the 3.3V ouput levels and within the current limitations of the ESP

4

Only the original chip supports Bluetooth classic. The other are ver 5.0 which is BLE only.

5

Welcome!
Actually I recommend either the UNO or Nano, they are much less money and the interface is a lot simpler especially when first starting out. Later when you get comfortable then switch to a 32 bit processor.

The side benefit of the UNO/Nano is they have been around for many years. This also correctly indicates there is a lot more information, examples, etc for these parts.

Here is something important:
Gil's Crispy Critter Rules for Processor Hardware:

  1. Rule #1: An Arduino is NOT a Power Supply!
  2. Rule #2: Never connect anything inductive (motors, speakers) directly to an Arduino!
  3. Rule #3: Avoid connecting or disconnecting wires while the power is on.
  4. Rule #4: Do not apply power to any pin unless you are certain of what you're doing.
  5. Rule #5: Do not exceed the maximum voltage ratings.
  6. Rule #6: Many Arduinos cannot power transmitters directly.
  7. Rule #7: Before powering your project, take a break and double-check the wiring.

LaryD’s Corollaries:

  1. Coro #1: When starting out, add a 220Ω resistor in series with both input and output pins to protect against shorts.
  2. Coro #2: Invest in a Digital Multi-Meter (DMM) to measure voltages, currents, and resistance.

Note: Violating these rules can turn your Arduinos into crispy critters. For optimal performance, keep your wires under 25 cm (10 inches).

If you can afford it get a small lab power supply, it will pay for itself in a relative short time by keeping you from frying your experiments. Picture shown below:

Additional Tips:

  • The L293 motor driver, though common, is inefficient as it can lose around 3V as heat when driving both legs of a motor. Consider using a motor driver with MOSFET outputs to reduce heat loss and conserve battery power.
  • For more on powering Arduino boards, explore this guide: Powering Alternatives for Arduino Boards.

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This link will take you to what appears to be a nice unit (I have never tried it): https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256801612054652.html

6

Or add hardware to make sure that it will (a TTL 7400 buffer for instance, or not gates or open-collectors for the output, possible voltage dividers or level shifters for the inputs if any)

7

Why 12?
As far as I can see, each TB6600 requires two GPIO pins, total is 6. If you have three on-off-on switches, you can connect them to three analog pins!
Just use this diagram for each switch, adding just a couple of 10-15k resistors:

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Then the code to read the switch state (in this example I have the pin numbers in the "S3Pin[]" array) is:

...
#define S3_UP 2
#define S3_CENTER 1
#define S3_DOWN 0
...
  int cur = Analog2OnOffOn(S3Pin[i]);
  if (cur == S3_CENTER) {
    // do what you need to do...
...
// ------------------------------------------------------
int Analog2OnOffOn(byte pin) {
  int cur = analogRead(pin);
  if (cur < 300)  // Switch up = ON1
    return S3_UP;
  else if (cur < 800) // Switch center = OFF
    return S3_CENTER;
  else  // Switch down = ON2
    return S3_DOWN;    
}
...

This way the total required GPIO pins can be reduced to just 9, and you can use any Arduino/ESP you want/need...:wink: