pololu / dual-vnh5019-motor-shield

Arduino library for the Pololu Dual VNH5019 Motor Driver Shield
http://www.pololu.com/product/2507
MIT License
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Arduino library for the Pololu Dual VNH5019 Motor Driver Shield

Version: 3.0.0
Release Date: 2018-04-11
www.pololu.com

Summary

This is a library for the Arduino IDE that interfaces with the Pololu Dual VNH5019 Motor Driver Shield. It makes it simple to drive two brushed, DC motors.

Supported platforms

This library is designed to work with the Arduino IDE versions 1.6.x or later; we have not tested it with earlier versions. This library should support any Arduino-compatible board, including the Pololu A-Star 32U4 controllers.

Getting started

Hardware

The Dual VNH5019 Motor Driver Shield can be purchased from Pololu's website. Before continuing, careful reading of the product page as well as the product user's guide is recommended.

Software

If you are using version 1.6.2 or later of the Arduino software (IDE), you can use the Library Manager to install this library:

  1. In the Arduino IDE, open the "Sketch" menu, select "Include Library", then "Manage Libraries...".
  2. Search for "DualVNH5019MotorShield".
  3. Click the DualVNH5019MotorShield entry in the list.
  4. Click "Install".

If this does not work, you can manually install the library:

  1. Download the latest release archive from GitHub and decompress it.
  2. Rename the folder "dual-vnh5019-motor-shield-xxxx" to "DualVNH5019MotorShield".
  3. Drag the "DualVNH5019MotorShield" folder into the "libraries" directory inside your Arduino sketchbook directory. You can view your sketchbook location by opening the "File" menu and selecting "Preferences" in the Arduino IDE. If there is not already a "libraries" folder in that location, you should make the folder yourself.
  4. After installing the library, restart the Arduino IDE.

Example

An example sketch is available that shows how to use the library. You can access it from the Arduino IDE by opening the "File" menu, selecting "Examples", and then selecting "DualVNH5019MotorShield". If you cannot find these examples, the library was probably installed incorrectly and you should retry the installation instructions above.

Demo

The demo ramps motor 1 from stopped to full speed forward, ramps down to full speed reverse, and back to stopped. Then, it does the same with the other motor. Current readings for each motor are sent over serial and can be seen with the serial monitor. If a fault is detected, a message is sent over serial.

Documentation

Current readings

The current readings returned by getM1CurrentMilliamps and getM2CurrentMilliamps will be noisy and unreliable if you are using a PWM frequency below about 5 kHz. We expect these readings to work fine if you haven't remapped the PWM pins and you are using a board based on the ATmega168, ATmega328P, ATmega328PB, or ATmega32U4, since this library uses 20 kHz hardware PWM on those boards.

On other boards, this library uses analogWrite to generate PWM signals, which usually means that the PWM frequency will be too low to get reliable current measurements. If analogWrite uses a frequency of 490 Hz or more on your board, you can add a 1 µF (or larger) capacitor between each current sense line you are using and GND. To make getM1CurrentMilliamps work well, you would add the capacitor between M1CS and GND. To make getM2CurrentMilliamps work well, you would add the capacitor between M2CS and GND.

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