Wednesday, September 26, 2007

PWM DC motor control

I have been experimenting with using PWM (pulse width modulation) to control the speed of a DC motor. I have been using the Arduino as a standalone device, with a pot attached. I have also been using a ULN2003.

This method will make the DC motor "think" it is being powered by a variable voltage source between 0 and 5V, depending on the state of the potentiometer.

So, the following hardware connections should be made:
  • ULN2003 PIN 8 to GND
  • ULN2003 PIN 9 to 5V
  • ULN2003 PIN 1 to Arduino digital control pin 9
  • ULN2003 PIN 16 to one terminal of the motor
  • the other terminal of the motor to 5V
  • one of the outer legs of the potentiometer to 5V
  • the other outer leg of the potentiometer to GND
  • the middle leg of the potentiometer to Arduino analog in 0

Arduino Code:
byte data;

void setup() {

}

void loop () {
data = analogRead(0) / 4;

analogWrite(9, data);
delay(5);
}



5 comments:

Unknown said...

I started looking into PWM about 4 or so months back, but based on a 555. I wasn't interested in controlling the speed of a motor but being able to change the %Duty Cycle of a square wave tone without, of course, changing the frequency. Once I start back on designing my synth I'll definitely include some PWM in the end product to have some on board variable chorus-like effects.

Sebastian Tomczak said...

yeah for sure. picaxe has some more extensive PWM commands than the arduino, and there are also some interesting ways of having a simple dipswitch interface for controlling the % duty cycle (see here for example: http://milkcrate.com.au/_other/sea-moss/#81)

Unknown said...

Nice. I experiment using a pot [see: http://www.cpemma.co.uk/pwm.html] on the output to vary the PWM. When I get into it I'll be making posts about it... but I doubt that'll be soon.

Sebastian Tomczak said...

cooly cooly.

Isabella said...

Pretty worthwhile info, thank you for the article.