L293D Motor Driver Shield for Arduino

L293D Motor Driver Shield for Arduino

This L293D Motor Driver 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.

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 to be directly connected to the PWM outputs of the Arduino.
An L293D:
The L293D motor driver shield includes two L293 motor driver ICs and a 74HC595 shift register IC. The shield has several important components.
The Motor driver:
The L293D is a dual-channel H-bridge motor driver that can control two DC motors or a stepper motor at one time. As there are two L293D ICs on the shield, it’s technically capable of controlling a total of four DC motors.
This is ideal for two and four-wheel robot platforms. The IC consists of two H-bridge to control the motors, each delivering p to 0.6A to a motor.
The Shift Register:
The 74HC595 is an 8-bit serial input and serial/parallel output shift register. It’s used to extend four Arduino GPIO (or another microcontroller) to eight direction control pins for two of the L293D motor driver ICs.
The power supply:
The power supply to the shield can be used for both the shield and Arduino or the two can use separate power supplies. If sharing a common power supply, a power jumper must be placed on the shield. The power supply can be provided through Arduino’s USB port, its DC jack, or from the shield’s 2-pin EXT-PWR block.

Features/Specs:

• 2 connections for 5V ‘hobby’ servos connected to the Arduino’s high-resolution dedicated timer
• 4 H-Bridges: L293D chipset provides 0.6A per bridge (1.2A peak) with thermal shutdown protection, internal kickback protection
• diodes. Can run motors on 4.5VDC to 25VDC.
• Up to 4 bi-directional DC motors with individual 8-bit speed selection (so, about 0.5% resolution)
• Up to 2 stepper motors (unipolar or bipolar) with single coil, double coil or interleaved stepping.
• Pull-down resistors keep motors disabled during power-up
• Big terminal block connectors to easily hook up wires (18-26AWG) and power
• Arduino reset button brought up top
• 2-pin terminal block and jumper to connect external power, for separate logic/motor supplies
• Tested compatible with Arduino Mega 1280 & 2560, Diecimila, Duemilanove, and UNO

Package includes:

• 1 x L293D Motor Driver Shield for Arduino