Motor Driver Shield L293D & 74HC595 - Arduino Compatible

This L293D Motor Driver / Stepper / Servo Shield for Arduino is probably one of the most versatile on the market and features 2 servo and 4 motor connectors for DC or stepper motors. That makes it a great shield for any robotic project. This Arduino compatible motor Driver shield is a full-featured product that it can be use to drive 4 DC motor or two 4-wire steppers and two 5v servos. It drives the DC motor and stepper with the L293D, and it drives the servo with Arduino pin9 and pin10.

L293D is a monolithic integrated, high voltage, high current, 4-channel driver. Basically, this means using this chip you can use DC motors and power supplies of up to 36 Volts, that some pretty big motors and the chip can supply a maximum current of 600mA per channel, the L293D chip is also what’s known as a type of H-Bridge. The H-Bridge is typically an electrical circuit that enables a voltage to be applied across a load in either direction to an output, e.g. a motor.

The shield contains two L293D motor drivers and one 74HC595 shift register. The shift register expands 3 pins of the Arduino to 8 pins to control the direction of the motor drivers. The output enables the L293D is directly connected to PWM outputs of the Arduino.

Features

• Can drive 4 DC motors or 2 stepper motors or 2 Servo.
• Basically this means using this chip you can use DC motors and power supplies of up to 12 Volts
• Thats some pretty big motors and the chip can supply a maximum current of 600mA per channel, the L293D chip is also what's known as a type of H-Bridge.
• The H-Bridge is typically an electrical circuit that enables a voltage to be applied across a load in either direction to an output, e.g. motor.
• 2 connections for 5V servos motor connected to the Arduino's high-resolution dedicated timer - no jitter!
• Up to 4 bi-directional DC motors with individual 8-bit speed selection.
• Up to 2 stepper motors (unipolar or bipolar) with single coil, double coil or interleaved stepping.
• 4 H-Bridges: per bridge provides 0.6A (1.2A peak current) with thermal protection, can run motors on 4.5V to 12V DC.
• Pull down resistors keep motors disabled during power-up.
• Reset button.
• 2 external terminal power interface, for seperate logic/motor supplies.
• Tested compatible for Arduino Mega, Diecimila & Duemilanove.

Power Supply

Power for the motors can be supplied from the Arduino boards DC Jack (normally 9V) or from the 2-pin EXT-PWR terminal block.
If you are supplying power from the EXT_PWR terminal block you should remove the PWR jumper or you could damage the shield and the Arduino board.

Documents

• L293D Data Sheet
• Schematic Diagram
• Library
  • https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-Motor-Shield-library or AFMotor Driver Library
• AccelStepper Driver Library
• Arduino Tutorial

Pins

• Digital pins
  • Used by this shield
    • 0 (RX) and 1 (TX)
    • Pin 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
    • Motor
      • MOTOR1_PWM – pin 11
      • MOTOR2_PWM – pin 3
      • MOTOR3_PWM – pin 6
      • MOTOR4_PWM – pin 5
      • SERVO1_PWM – pin 10
      • SERVO2_PWM – pin 9
    • Shift Register
      • LATCH – pin 12
      • CLK – pin 4
      • ENABLE – pin 7
      • DATA – pin 8
  • Available
    • 2 and 13
    • 9 and 10 are used for the servo motors
• Analog pins
  • Available
    • A0, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5 are
    • I2C (A4=SDA and A5=SCL)
• SPI is not possible since those pins are used

Notes:

• Please note that this item does not come with an Arduino (you'll need one to use with the shield).
• The shield now comes with all the components soldered on and tested and have headers installed.