Electrical – Voltage for motor driver

arduinobatteriesdc motordrivervoltage

I am using a Pololu DRV8355 dual motor driver. According to the specs, it requires voltage between 1.5V and 11V to operate. I'd like to use two 3V motors with it, and also power an Arduino (Mega 2560) board through it. Since I'm a complete beginner, I am not sure about the input voltage I should provide to the driver. With my limited understanding, I came up with the following possibilities which I don't know how to verify (other than asking here):

  • Does the input voltage just need to be anything in the range 1.5-11V – in other words, can the driver adjust the voltage to whatever is needed? If so, would that mean that just two 1.2V batteries would work, and adding more wouldn't help in any way?
  • Does the input voltage need to be the maximum of needed voltages – 7V?
  • Does the input voltage need to be a sum of required inputs, which would be 3V + 3V + 7-12V? This clearly exceeds the driver's operating range. Would I therefore need to provide 6V to the shield and just power my Arduino directly with another power supply?

Best Answer

You are mixing everything, this is not a power supply or some kind of voltage regulator.

As you can see in the datasheet, this is just a dual H-Bridge. A H-Bridge is a simple and clever way to associate 4 transistors to connect, disconnect and reverse a voltage input. This is useful to control a motor with a µC, by sending it a PWM signal.

The H-Bridge needs 2 power supplies. One for the power side and one for the logic side.

You can see the H-Bridge as a switch that can apply the power side voltage to your motor, and reverse it. So the input voltage of the power side should be around 3V. The effective voltage at the motor will be a bit less due to the voltage dropout inside the bridge, but you can neglect it for now.

The input voltage of the logic side should be the same as the operating voltage of your µC. You can use the 5V pin of the Arduino Mega. Warning : never use that pin on something that uses power, such as your motors. Only logical purposes.

Then you will need to provide power to your Arduino Mega. You can apply a voltage between 7 and 12V. 9V is fine.

Related Topic