Dual Motor Board TinyShield (No Connectors)

The Dual Motor TinyShield allows you to drive two independently controlled DC brushed motors from your TinyDuino.

Create your own tiny robots or drones! Using two of the super miniature but very powerful 2mm x 2mm TI DRV8837 Motor Driver (H-Bridge) IC, this shield will allow for up to 1.8A per channel and operate motors between 1.8 to 11V.

This TinyShield includes a built-in motor controller to make driving motors simple and uses the TinyDuino I2C interface - saving GPIO pins on the TinyDuino processor for other tasks. An easy-to-use Arduino library is provided to control this.

To learn more about the TinyDuino Platform, click here

Specification

To see what other TinyShields this will work with or conflict with, check out the TinyShield Compatibility Matrix

TI DRV8837 H-bridge motor driver

• Low MOSFET On-Resistance: HS + LS 280mOhm
• 1.8A Max Drive Current (Recommend 500mA max)
• 1.8V to 11V Motor Operating Supply Voltage Range

TinyDuino Power Requirements

• Voltage: 3.0V - 5.5V
• Current: 5mA (Logic only)

Pins Used

• A5/SCL - I2C Serial Clock line
• A4/SDA - I2C Serial Data line

Dimensions

• 20mm x 20mm (.787 inches x .787 inches)
• Max Height (from lower bottom TinyShield Connector to upper top TinyShield Connector): 5.11mm (0.201 inches)
• Weight: 1.62 grams (.06 ounces)

Downloads

• Tutorial
• DRV8837 Datasheet
• EAGLE Files
• Schematic
• ATtiny841 Library and example for Dual Motor TinyShield
• Dual Motor TinyShield Example Arduino Sketch
• CAD 3D and 2D Files

Notes

• While the DRV8837 supports 1.8A @ 11V, we highly recommend operating under 500mA @ 5V per channel unless you have some really good heat sinking in place.
• Up to 4 Dual Motor TinyShields can be stacked together in one TinyDuino stack. However, the I2C address needs to be different for each TinyShield. This can be changed with resistors R1 and R2.
• By default, the motor power supply input connection is connected to the VBATT connection on the TinyDuino. Therefore, you can run your TinyDuino and the motors off the same battery when it's plugged into this TinyShield. However, when using this, be sure not to exceed 5.5V on this power input or it will damage the TinyDuino circuitry. If a higher motor voltage is required, you can remove resistor R3 which will allow you to run the motor voltage independently from the TinyDuino logic voltage.
• Even though the motor driver can support 11V at 1.8Amps, we do not recommend using more than a 5V motor at 500mA due to the small size.
• Be sure that your power supply is sufficient to operate these motors as well as your logic – batteries are the best. If you are running both the motors and the logic off of one power supply, we recommend avoiding using a switching power supply as the transients caused can potentially damage items connected to the logic side.