MOTOR DIRECTION CONTROL

Other Hardware Motors, Mechanics, Power and CNC
1

Hey all, pretty new to all this and am working on a project, so far so good......

Until now.....

My set up is an arduino mega2560 connected to 4 ardumoto drive shields, and a stepper motor, and various buttons 8 off to be precise.
What I am trying to do is run the motors in a set sequence for a set period of time, I can operate pairs of motors in either direction just fine, when I come to operate motors that run on independent drive shields the motor will only ever run in reverse :astonished: I have tried numerous things and changing the pins from high to low and vice versa and all it does it effectivley turn the motor off, like I say I am new and been doing this for 3 days and have got no further, can someone tell me what I am doing wrong??

MORE INFO,

The drive sheilds source power from a 12V 5A dc power supply, the mega is taking power from the usb right now.
Each switch has a 10K resistor on it connected to ground.
Each pair of motors (ie drive1 motors a & b) run just fine backwards or forwards
Problem occurs when introducing a motor from an independant board, in a sequence of three motors one will only work in reverse or "off".
The timings are perfect and the stepper behaves as expected
Changing (dir_e, LOW) makes the motor not run
Changing (pwm_e, LOW) makes the motor not run

The code I am posting is where I am so far

Thanks in advance.

BUTTON_1_A_B_E_F.pde (4.28 KB)

2

Are your drives all set for step & direction? or are some of them configured with a forward and reverse pins?

3

Hi ya,

New to all this, I'm not sure what you mean, I understood that the pins are set from the mega, not from the drive board :S

4

So.....I have been doing some reading and research mainly about the ardumoto drive shield.

As I understand it on the sparkfun page the instruction is to supply the logic from the +5V and the motor power from Vin,

I am using an external 12V power source for the Vin, what I want to be sure is, If I connect the +5V from the ardumoto to the mega2560 (the power supply for the mega is USB currently) that it wont fry either one.

So to re-itterate am I correct in thinking that without the +5V conection to the ardumoto that the drive shield will not function correctly??

I am reluctant to just give it a go, as I dont want to fry either the ardumto drive shields or the arduino mega, as I have already killed 2 boards experimenting!!!

Thanks again