Help connecting components for a motorized pulley

Hi everyone,

More detail on the title: I want to be able to press a button which will activate a motor with a pulley. Said pulley will have an item hanging from fishing line on it (item may weigh a half pound). The second button press should reverse the motion, pulling the item back up. Oh, and it should play a little song on button press.

I'm an electronics noob but I really want to learn, I'm just hitting paralysis on how to put this together. I have the following parts (some may be superfluous):

  • TT Motor Bi-Metal Gearbox (3VDC - 6VDC)
    • 3801
  • TT Motor Pulley
    • 3789
  • 3xAA Battery Holder (do I connect this to the arduino to power the components??)
    • 771
  • Mini Metal Speaker
    • 1890
  • Big Red Button (no need to power the LED)
    • 1185
  • Arduino Nano Every (do I need a motor driver??)
  • Adafruit CRICKIT (plus a Male DC Power adapter - not sure if either of these are relevant)
    • 3093

Any tips appreciated. Cheers!

All parts are from Adafruit. To see parts, follow https://www.adafruit.com/product/{PRODUCTNUMBER}, the product numbers being in the indented bullets

Hello delafields

It seems to be a school assigment, isn´t it?

Post your sketch, well formated, with comments and in so called code tags "< code >" and schematic to see how we can help.

Have a nice day and enjoy coding in C++.

Hello @paulpaulson, thanks for the kind reply.

I must sound like quite the rookie - not a school assignment! I’m in my 30’s lol, just new to electronics.

I don’t have a sketch (would that be of the various components I’ve outlined?). No code written at this point. I’m a software developer, so I was planning on giving that a stab myself before asking for help.

I’m really just looking for direction as to how to make these various physical parts connect. And if I didn’t mention it before, I have access to a breadboard, wires, gator clips, etc.

Keep it simple and stupid firstly.

Follow the example code that comes with the library or
run some tutorials for the hardware selected.

If you are happy with the results of the tutorials you can merge these to your project.

Have a nice day and enjoy coding in C++.

I don't even know where to start or if I have the right components to start. I'm trying to start with the motor but these two questions are holding me back:

  1. Am I going to need a motor driver?
  2. Do I have sufficient power?

Yes, you will definitely need some type of a "driver". A microcontroller cannot typically put out enough power to a motor from its own pins. The driver can be a transistor or a purpose built motor driver, of which there are many.
As to whether you have sufficient power from 3xAA cells (4.5V) depends on the speed at which you want to drive the motor. With a 1/2 lb weight, it probably won't hurt to try.

Take a look at this link from Adafruit. Also keep in mind that the pin outs will be different (this one uses an Uno).

You can use what you have to get the physical construction done and tested. You only need to have a solid mount for the motor and add the pulley and the fishing line and test the motor with the battery supply. Until this works, there is no reason to go any further.

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