I was making a safecracking puzzle in which you had to rotate a potentiometer until it starts buzzing, at which point you had to press a button to lock the number in. You then had to repeat this action three times until a motor activated, opening a box. I created the entire thing in an emulator (Tinkercad) because I didn't want to buy all the parts only to completely lose all motivation to do it for the next month. My problem is my vibration motor isn't running at full power, instead running at a 1.5V. TL;DR: Vibration motor using 1.5V instead of 5V. int digit1 = 0; void setup() { pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT); pinMode(11, OUTPUT); pinMode(A0, INPUT); pinMode(A5, INPUT); pinMode(2, OUTPUT); } void loop() { if (analogRead(A0) >= 500 && analogRead(A0) = 840 && analogRead(A0) = 154 && analogRead(A0) <= 174 && digit1 == 2){ digitalWrite(11, HIGH); if (analogRead(A5) == 1023){ digitalWrite(13, HIGH); digit1 = 3; delay(100); digitalWrite(13, LOW); }//if 2 else { digitalWrite(13, LOW); }//else 2 } //if else { digitalWrite(11, LOW); }//else if (digit1 == 3){ digitalWrite(2, HIGH); delay(500); digitalWrite(2, LOW); digit1 = 4; }//if }//void loop Schematic: Safecracker Puzzle.pdf - Google Drive

[image] soy_boi: it does have the ability to run at full power, since it ran pretty well until some unknown point in my coding. I looked at your code - and gave up because its unreadable. I'd suggest you start again - and consider 1: using sensible variable and constant names to make your code self-commenting; and 2: using a "state machine" approach with a switch-case structure as explained here [image] Beginners: using the switch - case statement Introductory Tutorials The switch - case statement is a powerful construct that is often under-used by beginners. Basically it allows you to perform tests on a value (or range of values) and make decisions - a bit like the IF statement. This tutorial has three examples that progressively introduce some simple ideas to help you use the switch construct in your programming. You will need an Arduino Uno (the programs will run on most arduinos) three leds - preferably red, yellow, green - some resistors around 220 ohms…

The problem appears to be that you are using the microcontroller as a power supply rather than a logic supply. Don’t power things from the uC.

I do agree with this, however, it does have the ability to run at full power, since it ran pretty well until some unknown point in my coding.

Yes, you are powering everything from the uC so you are likely overloading it. It will be heating up as it tries to push too many pixies through its voltage regulator. Even if this is not your stated problem it is a problem.

I don't think the pin can provide enough power to run the motor, but it can sink more than it can source so you might try hooking the other side of the motor to 5v instead of gnd. You might be able to parallel some outputs together to get more power but be careful of exceeding the package power dissipation. I am very interested in your results as I have a project that would benefit from being able to drive these directly.

"It worked before but doesn't work now" is telling me you destroyed that pin's output buffer. NEVER power a motor directly from an Arduino's output pin. Assuming you're using an Uno, an ATmega328P is only rated for 20 mA output per pin, and realistically you should stay a healthy amount away from that. The vibration motors I found advertised as "low current" are still 9mA - 25 mA (operating at 3V), easily in the danger area for a microcontroller output. Motors also have the inherent danger of "inductive kick" causing voltage spikes when they are turned off, further increasing the damage they can do to a circuit that is not designed to deal with them. Use the output to trigger another circuit to switch the motor on and off. The easiest power switch to use is an NPN transistor with a base resistor and a flyback diode. You can find tons of examples for how to use a transistor switch for loads that the pins can't handle directly, especially for motors.

Thanks! While I don't believe this is the problem since I was using an emulator, it will still be useful when building it IRL. I'll try this in a simulation to see if it works.

[image] soy_boi: I created the entire thing in an emulator (Tinkercad) ... I don't believe this is the problem since I was using an emulator, Tinkercad does have some knowledge of overloading, but I don't know how realistic it is. If you (for example) use an led on an IO pin without a resistor, it warns that the current is too high. But the message is more concerned about the led not the Arduino, so not sure how smart the simulator is. [image] You could post a link to the simulation...

For what it's worth, when I use the vibration motor in Tinkercad, it "measures" the dis-connected resistance at 50 ohms (top right, not sure how it would know that, presumably a built in simulation parameter of the motor?... it does know that wire has no resistance bottom right so components must declare their resistance to the meter somehow?). There would be a start-up current of 5/50 = 100mA and the simulator doesn't seem to worry about that being 5x the pin's safe value, nor does it worry about what it measures as the motor's 50mA running current. [image] As I said in previous post, it's concerned about the led's current, but is silent on the fact that it's actually the pin that we should worry about. It's all irrelevant anyway: best practice is surely not to power even a vibration motor with an IO pin, and use a diffeent supply and a transistor.

Sorry about my spaghetti code. After some testing, I determined it was defiantly my code that was the problem, since I made a separate simulation of just a motor with an NPN transistor and it worked fine. Just from a quick look at your article and it looks pretty helpful. I'll restart my project using it and get back if it helps. Thanks!

After restarting the project using the switch case, it worked! Thank you so much for helping me out on this, you're a lifesaver. New code: int digit = 0; const byte motor = 11; void setup() { pinMode(motor, OUTPUT); pinMode(A0, INPUT); pinMode(A5, INPUT); } void loop() { int dial = (analogRead(A0)); int button = (analogRead(A5)); dial = dial/102; if (button == 1023){ button = 1000; }else{ button = 0; } switch (dial + button + digit) { case 10: { digitalWrite(motor, HIGH); } break; case 105: { digitalWrite(motor, HIGH); } break; case 200: { digitalWrite(motor, HIGH); } break; case 1010: { digitalWrite(motor, HIGH); digit = 100; } break; case 1105: { digitalWrite(motor, HIGH); digit = 200; } break; case 1200: { digitalWrite(motor, HIGH); digit = 300; } break; default: { digitalWrite(motor, LOW); } } }

Vibration motor not running at full power

Projects Programming

johnerrington September 1, 2022, 6:05am 14

I looked at your code - and gave up because its unreadable.

I'd suggest you start again - and consider
1: using sensible variable and constant names to make your code self-commenting; and
2: using a "state machine" approach with a switch-case structure as explained here

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Vibration motor not running at full power

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