Shield driving motors - Motor shield v2.3

Drive motors, steppers, servo easily with Arduino and MicroPython

The Original Adafruit Motor Shield is certainly one of the most popular kit of the Arduino EcoSystem. Adafruit went back on its creation to create an even better kit... and the bet is held with a Motor Shield I2C (and an Arduino library) which is and remains the easiest way to order continuous and stepper motors from an Arduino. This shield will allow you to quickly put together your next robotic projects!

This version 2.3 Motor Shield still allows to control up to 4 continuous motors and 2 stepper motors but also contains many improvements:

This shield now uses a TB6612 MOSFET motor driver instead of the L293D H-Bridge. The TB6612 supports 1.2A per channel and a peak current of 3A. This new integrated circuit also reduces the voltage loss in the H-Bridge (much less), which offers a greater voltage across the motor and therefore a better torque compared to an L293. Finally, it also incorporates anti-return diodes.

Instead of using a shift register and the Arduino PWM pins, this board has its own PWM generator. PWM controller manages all motors and control their speeds via the I2C bus. This board requires only two pins (SDA and SCL) to control everything... and since it is the I2C bus, you can also connect other shields and other I2C peripherals to the same pins. So, this makes this shield compatible with any Arduino, such as Uno, Leonardo and Mega R3. (The Arduino Due's Wire support is still in beta, but once it works fine, Adafruit will do the compatibility tests).

Designed to be stackable: this board has 5 addressing pins to stack up to 32 shields, which represents 64 stepper motors or 128 continuous motors! We have no idea what could be created with so many motors... but if you realize such a project, don't hesitate to warm us, because such a project must be absolutely fabulous. 

Many other small improvements like polarity protection FETs on the power pins and a small prototyping area. The shield is fully assembled and tested at Adafruit, you only need to weld your pin-Headers (or Stacking pin-Header) and the terminal blocks. 

Let's review the specifications again:

• 2 connections for 5 volts 'hobby' servo-motors connected directly to the dedicated high resolution Arduino timer - no shake!   
  
• 4 H-Bridge: the TB6612 chipset provides up to 1.2A per bridge (with 3A peak) with thermal protection (emergency stop), integrated anti-return protection diode (freewheel). 
  Capable of running continuous motors from 4.5V to 13.5V.
• Up to 4 continuous motors (bidirectional) with 8-bit individual speed selection (so with a resolution of about 0.5%) J
• Up to 2 stepper motors (uni-polar or bipolar) with single coil, double coil, interleave or micro-stepping.
• The motors are automatically deactivated when the power is turned on.
• Large terminal connection that allow easy connection of wires from 0.13mm² to 0.82mm² (18-26AWG) as well as the power supply.
• The Arduino reset button is also made available on the shield.
• 2-pole terminal block with polarity protection and jumper to connect external power supply to separate the power supply logic and motors. 
• Compatibility tested with Arduino UNO, Leonardo, ADK/Mega R3, Diecimila a,d Duemilanove. Works with Mega/ADK R2 and previous using two wire jumpers.
• Download the Arduino library, take a look at the examples and you are ready to start!  

Content

Delivered as an assembled shield, tested + row of pin-Header + jumper with the following elements already welded on the board: terminal block, connector for servo-motors and power jumper. 

Some welding operations are necessary to assemble the headers. Stacking headers are not included, but you can get them on our site. Arduino and motors are not included but we also have motors, servo and stepper motors in our robotic range.