DC Motor 21 Click

How does it work?

DC Motor 21 Click as its foundation uses the A3910, a dual half-bridge motor driver designed for low voltage power applications from Allegro Microsystems. This Click board™ is controlled via several GPIO pins of the mikroBUS™ socket and has a wide operating voltage range with an output current capacity of 500mA maximum. The integrated MOSFETs, which configures a half-bridge circuit inside the A3910, provide the possibility to drive dual DC motors but also allow to be used in the full-bridge configuration to drive a single bidirectional DC motor. Thanks to its plane features and benefits, this Click board™ is targeted at the consumer market with end applications to low voltage equipment.

Using an integrated MOS switch improves braking action for the motor, compared to implementation with a simple clamp diode. Besides, it also features built-in protection such as crossover current and thermal shutdown protection, alongside “Sleep” Standby mode with zero drain-current.

As mentioned in the product description, DC Motor 21 Click communicates with MCU using several GPIO pins. To turn ON the internal MOSFETs of the A3910, they need to be switched by the logic level, which is input to the control input pins: HN1, LN1, HN2, and LN2 pins routed to the AN, CS, PWM, and INT pins of the mikroBUS™ socket. Thereby, the Drive/Break/Coast/Sleep motor functions can be selected according to the state of its input control signals.

This Click board™ can operate with both 3.3V and 5V logic voltage levels selected via the VCC SEL jumper. This way, it is allowed for both 3.3V and 5V capable MCUs to use communication lines properly. However, the Click board™ comes equipped with a library containing easy-to-use functions and an example code that can be used, as a reference, for further development.

Specifications

Pinout diagram

This table shows how the pinout on DC Motor 21 Click corresponds to the pinout on the mikroBUS™ socket (the latter shown in the two middle columns).

Notes	Pin					Pin	Notes
Motor 1 Control Input	HN1	1	AN	PWM	16	HN2	Motor 2 Control Input
	NC	2	RST	INT	15	LN2	Motor 2 Control Input
Motor 1 Control Input	LN1	3	CS	RX	14	NC
	NC	4	SCK	TX	13	NC
	NC	5	MISO	SCL	12	NC
	NC	6	MOSI	SDA	11	NC
Power Supply	3.3V	7	3.3V	5V	10	5V	Power Supply
Ground	GND	8	GND	GND	9	GND	Ground

Onboard settings and indicators

DC Motor 21 Click electrical specifications

Software Support

We provide a library for the DC Motor 21 Click as well as a demo application (example), developed using MikroElektronika compilers. The demo can run on all the main MikroElektronika development boards.

Package can be downloaded/installed directly from NECTO Studio Package Manager(recommended way), downloaded from our LibStock™ or found on Mikroe github account.

Library Description

This library contains API for DC Motor 21 Click driver.

Key functions

• dcmotor21_set_out_1 This function sets the state of output 1.

• dcmotor21_set_out_2 This function sets the state of output 2.

Example Description

This example demonstrates the use of DC Motor 21 Click board™.

 void application_task ( void ) 
 { 
     dcmotor21_set_out_1 ( &dcmotor21, DCMOTOR21_OUT_LOW ); 
     dcmotor21_set_out_2 ( &dcmotor21, DCMOTOR21_OUT_HIGH ); 
     log_printf( &logger, " rn Driving the motor...rn" ); 
     Delay_ms( 2000 ); 
     dcmotor21_set_out_1 ( &dcmotor21, DCMOTOR21_OUT_HIGH ); 
     dcmotor21_set_out_2 ( &dcmotor21, DCMOTOR21_OUT_LOW ); 
     log_printf( &logger, " Switch direction.rn" ); 
     Delay_ms( 2000 ); 
     dcmotor21_set_out_1 ( &dcmotor21, DCMOTOR21_OUT_HIGH_Z ); 
     dcmotor21_set_out_2 ( &dcmotor21, DCMOTOR21_OUT_HIGH_Z ); 
     log_printf( &logger, " The motor is disconnected.rn" ); 
     Delay_ms( 2000 ); 
 }

The full application code, and ready to use projects can be installed directly from NECTO Studio Package Manager(recommended way), downloaded from our LibStock™ or found on Mikroe github account.

Other Mikroe Libraries used in the example:

• MikroSDK.Board
• MikroSDK.Log
• Click.DCMotor21

Additional notes and informations

Depending on the development board you are using, you may need USB UART click, USB UART 2 Click or RS232 Click to connect to your PC, for development systems with no UART to USB interface available on the board. UART terminal is available in all MikroElektronika compilers.

mikroSDK

This Click board™ is supported with mikroSDK – MikroElektronika Software Development Kit. To ensure proper operation of mikroSDK compliant Click board™ demo applications, mikroSDK should be downloaded from the LibStock and installed for the compiler you are using.

For more information about mikroSDK, visit the official page.