Motor Controller

[anotherdragonball]

Hi,

Even though I study engineering I don't quite have a good understanding of the difference between DC motors, Stepper motors and the rest...I would like to know besides differences between them, how can I control a couple of 12V DC motors using some kind of cheaper IC. I read the tutorial about controlling two small 5V DC motors with a PIC micro-controller so I'm looking for something similar.

Thanks and waiting for your help.

[ThePyroElectro]

Hi Anotherdragonball,

In super simple terms, the difference between a DC motor and stepper motor is that if you connect the two terminals of a DC motor to a battery's +/- sides it will spin. It's that simple.

If you connected the +/- of a battery to the stepper motor terminals, it won't spin because it is a more complex motor

[DC Motor Control Tutorial]
[Stepper Motor Control Tutorial]

To answer your 12v vs. 5v question: All motor controllers will have two types of power inputs. One power input is for the digital control signals (Vcc1 on the SN754410) and one power supply is for controlling the motors (Vcc2 on the SN754410).

So to pass +12v to the motors instead of +5v like I did in the SN754410 tutorial you would connect the +12v to the Vcc2 pin and ground to the ground pin, and leave the rest of the circuit with the PIC exactly the same.

Hope this helps get your started in the right direction.

[anotherdragonball]

Thanks a lot, I will give it a try...