Friday 11 July 2008

Number 2 board done!


After work, I sat down and put together the first 'real' board - with real components and everything. The DC motor driver board takes a direction and PWM signal from the arduino, and drives a dc motor - in fact, it can drive two motors independently.
Again, the RRRF instructions are very clear and even suitable for me. I'm finding soldering easier now, I'm getting more confident and speeding up a bit. It took me about an hour and a half from start to finish, including testing.
Plugging it in was a bit unnerving, but the power LEDs came on, and there was no smoke or flames, so thumbs up. After loading up the arduino with the test program, the little DC motor started slow, then ramped up faster and faster, ending up with high-pitched whine that drove the cat off the windowsill nearby. It then slows down slowly and reverses. Result!
Swapping the motor to controller B produces the same result.

I think this is the first electronics project I've actually soldered and got working correctly - ever!

2 comments:

Forrest Higgs said...

It certainly looks like you're off to a good start!

Louise said...

Perhaps you should have asked your wife to spell check your post?? It's 'swapped' not 'swopped' :-)

Seriously though why didn't you tell me you were doing this blog? Now I know why the digital camera had to go on charge!!!!