I have been using the LSD293D successfully to drive two 5v 24BYJ-48 motors with only one issue, overheating. So far, the motors have no heating problems, only the LSD293D chips on the Ardafruit Motor board. Right now, I have attached some heatsinks to the chips however, those also get very hot. How can I solve this issue? (I have tried using a fan, though it was a mini room fan not designed for cooling electronics). Thank you for any help!
You must have a wiring error, because those motors should not draw enough current to overheat the L293D.
Please post the code, using code tags, a hand drawn (not Fritzing) wiring diagram with pins carefully labeled and the details of your motor power supply. Image posting guide
Would a wiring error affect the movement of the motors? I ask this because the motors still move correctly and with the right amount of steps.
Without the requested information, people will just guess, or ignore your post.
The L293 (and L298) are inefficient bjt-based dinosaurs.
They do get hot with that 35ohm motor coil resistance, about 0.5watt per phase.
If the heatsink stays below 65C (max temp for touching without burns), then I wouldn't worry too much.
You could move to the mosfet based v2 of that shield (Adafruit doesn't sell that v1 any more for a long time).
But that, like the v1, also isn't designed for steppers.
A true stepper driver, like the A4988 could be the best solution.
Leo..
Here are images of my setup. The first image is of the 5v 24BYJ48-64 motor. The second image is of my wiring setup for the L293D v2 shield with stepper motors. Is there anything visibly wrong with this?
Note: the motor wire order from top to bottom is orange, grey, black, blue.
Wiring setup
Here is an image of the power supply. The Motors are used for the M3D printer so they may be a custom 4 wire version of the typical 5 wire 24BYJ-48-64 motor. Thank you for your support!
It seems you're powering the Uno through it's V-in from that 5volt supply (the yellow jumper).
That is not enough for the Uno's 5volt regulator to make a stable 5volt for the Uno.
V-in should be at least 7volt.
But using a >=7volt supply on that screw terminal will increase your thermal problems.
Leo.
Though the power supply is rated at 5v when I checked with my multimeter, it had a voltage around 5.6v (with the motor off). Should the L293D be even heating up this much (it burns to the touch after 1 minute of running)?
The 24BYJ-48-64 is a 5 wire unipolar motor, the L293 has 4 output terminals, what are you doing with the 5th motor wire?
The stepper motors on the M3D website (I am using stepper motors from a 3D printer) are listed as 24BYJ-48 motors (1:64 gears) I think they may be custom-built to be bipolar instead of unipolar.
M3D stepper motors
Here is a link to the closest 24BYJ-48 stepper motor I could find commercially available. When using these specifications the motors work perfectly (they don't even heat up, only the Ardafruit Motorshield V2 does)
Motor datasheet link
FleshyOverlord:
Though the power supply is rated at 5v when I checked with my multimeter, it had a voltage around 5.6v (with the motor off). Should the L293D be even heating up this much (it burns to the touch after 1 minute of running)?
Motor current goes through the L293 chips, and 'looses' there a volt or two (the heat).
So I guess your motors only get about 3.5volt.
You should power the shield with 6.5-7volt, so the motors actually get 5volt.
7volt would also be needed for the Uno, when powering the Uno through the shield.
But as said, that would heat things up even more.
Maybe you should change to a CNC/stepper shield with A4988 modules, and a 9-12volt supply.
Leo..
The OP obviously posted the wrong link. The motor in question probably has very low winding resistance.
So I think I found a solution to running the steppers without overheating being an issue. I connected my stepper motor to a DRV8825 and powered it with a 9v power supply. So far there has been no heating with the motors or the drivers. I would have liked to use the Arduino CNC Shield V3 but alas, the minimum input voltage was 12v (when I did this the motors got really hot). The only issue I am having is that the motors are far louder (they vibrate a lot) than they were when powered by the 5v L293D shield. What is causing this and can I fix it? Thank you everyone for your support!
FleshyOverlord:
I would have liked to use the Arduino CNC Shield V3 but alas, the minimum input voltage was 12v (when I did this the motors got really hot).
Which driver boards did you plug into the CNC shield.
The A4988 as well as the DRV8825 need their current carefully adjusted to the specs (current/power) of the stepper.
Then supply voltage has nothing to do with heat.
Did you read the stepper tutorials from Robin2 on this site.
And the board adjust tutorials on Pololu.com
Leo..
So I retried attaching my 24-BYJ-48 stepper and with some fine adjustment of the potentiometer it worked with no overheating issues! I was not able to get it to work the first time because I was increasing the VREF to much (I was thinking the higher VREF was, the lower voltage across the motor was because VREF was a potentiometer and didn't realize the importance of current over source voltage), overheating the motor, and moving on to a different idea. If I had seen Polou.com's video instead of the online article I read, I probably would not have made this mistake (though I still didn't understand that the source voltage could be over 12v without damaging the motors). Thank you so much, and I'm sorry I took your time going full circle.
Good to hear you got it solved.
In fairly simple terms,
stepper drivers are current controlled switching devices, like DC/DC buck converters.
They feed the right amount of current into the motor, independent of their supply voltage.
The overhead voltage is there to be able to supply it to the motor at higher step rates (speed).
Do also read the stepper threads by Robin2 on this site.
They are very informative.
Leo..