Overview
The Arduino Motor Shield is based on the L298 (datasheet), which is a dual full-bridge driver designed to drive inductive loads such as relays, solenoids, DC and stepping motors. It lets you drive two DC motors with your Arduino board, controlling the speed and direction of each one independently. You can also measure the motor current absorption of each motor, among other features. The shield is TinkerKit compatible, which means you can quickly create projects by plugging TinkerKit modules to the board.
Getting Started
You can find in the Getting Started section all the information you need to configure your board, use the Arduino Software (IDE), and start tinker with coding and electronics.
Need Help?
- On the Software on the Arduino Forum
- On Projects on the Arduino Forum
- On the Product itself through our Customer Support
Tech specs
| Operating Voltage | 5V to 12V |
| Motor controller | L298P, Drives 2 DC motors or 1 stepper motor |
| Max current | 2A per channel or 4A max (with external power supply) |
| Current sensing | 1.65V/A |
| Free running stop and brake function |
Conformities
Resources for Safety and Products
Manufacturer Information
The production information includes the address and related details of the product manufacturer.
Arduino S.r.l.
Via Andrea Appiani, 25
Monza, MB, IT, 20900
https://www.arduino.cc/
Responsible Person in the EU
An EU-based economic operator who ensures the product's compliance with the required regulations.
Arduino S.r.l.
Via Andrea Appiani, 25
Monza, MB, IT, 20900
Phone: +39 0113157477
Email: support@arduino.cc
Documentation
OSH: Schematics
The Arduino Motor Shield is open-source hardware! You can build your own board using the following files:
EAGLE FILES IN .ZIP SCHEMATICS IN .PDF
Power
The Arduino Motor Shield must be powered only by an external power supply. Because the L298 IC mounted on the shield has two separate power connections, one for the logic and one for the motor supply driver. The required motor current often exceeds the maximum USB current rating.
External (non-USB) power can come either from an AC-to-DC adapter (wall-wart) or battery. The adapter can be connected by plugging a 2.1mm center-positive plug into the Arduino's board power jack on which the motor shield is mounted or by connecting the wires that lead the power supply to the Vin and GND screw terminals, taking care to respect the polarities.
To avoid possible damage to the Arduino board on which the shield is mounted, we reccomend using an external power supply that provides a voltage between 7 and 12V. If your motor require more than 9V we recommend that you separate the power lines of the shield and the Arduino board on which the shield is mounted. This is possible by cutting the "Vin Connect" jumper placed on the back side of the shield. The absolute limit for the Vin at the screw terminals is 18V.
The power pins are as follows:
- Vin on the screw terminal block, is the input voltage to the motor connected to the shield. An external power supply connected to this pin also provide power to the Arduino board on which is mounted. By cutting the "Vin Connect" jumper you make this a dedicated power line for the motor.
- GND Ground on the screw terminal block.
The shield can supply 2 amperes per channel, for a total of 4 amperes maximum.
Input and Output
This shield has two separate channels, called A and B, that each use 4 of the Arduino pins to drive or sense the motor. In total there are 8 pins in use on this shield. You can use each channel separately to drive two DC motors or combine them to drive one bipolar stepper motor. The shield's pins, divided by channel are shown in the table below:
| Function | pins per Ch. A | pins per Ch. B |
| Direction | D12 | D13 |
| PWM | D3 | D11 |
| Brake | D9 | D8 |
| Current Sensing | A0 | A1 |
If you don't need the Brake and the Current Sensing and you also need more pins for your application you can disable this features by cutting the respective jumpers on the back side of the shield.
The additional sockets on the shield are described as follow:
- Screw terminal to connect the motors and their power supply.
- 2 TinkerKit connectors for two Analog Inputs (in white), connected to A2 and A3.
- 2 TinkerKit connectors for two Aanlog Outputs (in orange in the middle), connected to PWM outputs on pins D5 and D6.
- 2 TinkerKit connectors for the TWI interface (in white with 4 pins), one for input and the other one for output.
Motors Connection
Brushed DC motor. You can drive two Brushed DC motors by connecting the two wires of each one in the (+) and (-) screw terminals for each channel A and B. In this way you can control its direction by setting HIGH or LOW the DIR A and DIR B pins, you can control the speed by varying the PWM A and PWM B duty cycle values. The Brake A and Brake B pins, if set HIGH, will effectively brake the DC motors rather than let them slow down by cutting the power. You can measure the current going through the DC motor by reading the SNS0 and SNS1 pins. On each channel will be a voltage proportional to the measured current, which can be read as a normal analog input, through the function analogRead() on the analog input A0 and A1. For your convenience it is calibrated to be 3.3V when the channel is delivering its maximum possible current, that is 2A.
Physical Characteristics
The maximum length and width of the Motor Shield PCB are 2.7 and 2.1 inches respectively. Four screw holes allow the board to be attached to a surface or case. Note that the distance between digital pins 7 and 8 is 160 mil (0.16"), not an even multiple of the 100 mil spacing of the other pins.
Learn more
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RS Components released the second video focused on the first steps with the Arduino Robot with Massimo Banzi, David Cuartielles and Xun Yang: In this video you will see where to find code examples on the IDE. The robot library comes with two folders named “learn” and “explore” with examples on how to use the software to program the top board – this is the board you will mainly interact with while the motor board runs its original firmware. One of the first examples of coding on the Arduino Robot is called “LOGO” which is very similar to an early educational programming language that controlled a virtual turtle moving across the screen with simple instructions. This time however, instead of having a small virtual turtle running on a screen, we have a robot that can respond to commands demonstrating a basic example of movement. “LOGO” invites users to interact with the robot using the keypad to tell the robot whether to move forwards/backwards or to turn left/right. The program can store a series of commands that will then be executed one at a time. Xun and David show users where to find the LOGO example and how to upload it to the robot's control board. You will notice that the robot's motors are disengaged when the USB cable is connected. The Arduino Robot can be pretty powerful and this feature prevents it from running away with your laptop! Since all motors are slightly different, users will have to configure the robot's movement using a different example called “Calibration”. Using a screwdriver on the trimmer on the bottom board, it is possible to balance the strength applied by each one of the wheels so that the robot moves straight when asked to. The video closes with an example of how to use a simple IR-receiver connected to one of the sensor inputs on the robot to control it using a small universal TV-remote. This program is also part of the basic list of examples in the library. Go and run with the first Arduino on wheels!