insideGadgets

Following on from Part 1, we’ve done our design and now it’s to put our prototype to the test, this will post won’t be as long as the design because all we need to do is test.

This is how our circuit looks to power 1 motor in 1 direction only.

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So here we are, we’re going to build us a motor controller to control 2 motors in both directions. First we’ll start off with our design which shows how our components will be connected and our reasoning, we could of just bought a motor controller chip like the L298N but we will rather learn something from our build and it should be easier to use than the L298N chip. Another on the plus our motor controller will have is about 1/2 the Vce of the L298N which is an advantage when dealing with low voltage motors and low voltage power supplies as well as back EMF protection (both will be explained).

This is quite a long post and do remember that I’m also new to understanding all of these concepts so do feel free to correct me if I’m doing something wrong! I’ve spent a good month checking all this out, posting on an electronics forum and trying to grasp the concepts I’ll be explaining you.

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So we’ve got our parts and our motor controller so we are now ready to make this robot move forward, backwards and turn. I’m assuming you’ve put the wheels on the motors, mounted them to your design, used a gearbox if necessary and you do have a motor controller. Plus you also have the 9 volt battery and clip for Arduino.

In this part we will need:

• Arduino Duemilanove ATmega328
• 4 x NPN general transistors (e.g. PN100, PN2222)
• 4 x 6.2K Ohm resistors (10K will do fine too)
• Breadboard
• Some wire

Example Schematic below

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