NKC Freeduino motor shield

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Interfacing
1

I recently got this shield for my birthday:

http://mcukits.com/2009/03/12/assembling-the-freeduino-arduino-motor-shield/

I am excited to assemble it and start to play with it, though looking at the little tutorial on how to , it doesn't seem to have any pass through? Like it uses all the pins on my arduino? Is that really the case? or am I missing something, anyone have experience with these particular motor shields?

I have noticed now many types and they all don't seem to be created equal. Secondly, how does one attach power to it, via the Vin it says, but does that mean like a battery pack, hot to the vin, and then one to ground?

Thanks, hopefully the assembly today will go splendid.

2

The shield only uses a few of the pins on the Arduino board. It appears as though you can assign which ones it uses.

You could use some different headers, like these:

These let you use any unused pins for other purposes, or stack another shield on top.

how does one attach power to it, via the Vin it says, but does that mean like a battery pack, hot to the vin, and then one to ground?

Precisely.

3

thanks! i got those headers and will hold off assembling this till those come in... :slight_smile:

4

Older shield designs were/are less likely to have the stackable headers...

You sort of want a motor driver shield to be on "top" anyway; as a higher-power peripheral, letting air get to it for cooling is more important than on the average shield...

5

I was thinking though just to have some pins open for sensors etc...

6

just to have some pins open for sensors

Ah. That's reasonable. Note that this particular shield design leaves the analog pins of the main board accessible. (Another "style" that is less common now that stackable shields are more common.) It's up to you whether you want to wait for the stackable connectors or not (of course!)

7

Hey thanks I appreciate it, I am not overly sure where I connect external power to the arduino I have to say... since the VIN pin of the motor shield will plug into vin of arduino not sure where the external power (to drive the motors themselves) comes from. Got it all up though all but the headers, waiting for the stackable ones... im quite excited!