Pololu A4990 Dual Motor Driver Shield for Arduino

Overview: This motor driver shield and its corresponding Arduino library make it easy to control a pair of bidirectional, brushed DC motors with an Arduino or Arduino clone. The board features Allegro’s A4990 dual H-bridge motor driver IC, which operates from 6 V to 32 V. It can deliver a continuous 0.65 A to each motor channel, and the current control feature of the A4990 limits the peak motor current to about 0.9 A per channel with the onboard sense resistors, making this shield well suited for low-current, high-voltage motors.

The shield ships fully populated with its SMD components, including the A4990 driver and a FET for reverse battery protection; header pins for interfacing with an Arduino and terminal blocks for connecting motors and power are included but are not soldered in (see the Assembly with included hardware section in pictures).

The shield uses digital pins 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 for its diagnostic and control lines. It should be compatible with any board that has a standard Arduino pin arrangement and the ability to generate PWM signals on pins 9 and 10, such as an Arduino Uno, Leonardo, Due, or Mega 2560.

This shield is intended to provide a low-cost, basic motor driver option for Arduinos, so it is much smaller than typical Arduino shields and does not include pass-through, stackable headers. For higher-power drivers with more configuration options, see our larger MC33926 and VNH5019 motor driver shields.

Features:

• Dual-H-bridge motor driver: can drive two DC motors or one bipolar stepper motor
• Motor supply voltage: 6 V to 32 V
• Logic supply voltage 2.5 V to 5.5 V
• Output current: 0.65 A continuous per motor
• Current control limits peak current to 0.9 A per motor
• Can work with ultrasonic (> 20 kHz) PWM frequencies, which allows for quieter motor operation
• Shield can optionally power the Arduino base directly when motor supply voltage is suitable
• Arduino library makes it easy to get started using this board as a motor driver shield
• Robust:
  • Reverse-voltage protection on the motor power supply
  • Can survive input voltages up to 40 V
  • Under-voltage and over-voltage protection
  • Over-temperature protection
  • Short-to-supply, short-to-ground, and shorted-load protection on the motor outputs