How many dc motors?

#1

how many dc motors,besides the two mbot came with , can we use?
can m1,m2,1,2,3,4 all be used for dc motors?

thanks very much for your help.

deborahcrain@yahoo.com

#2

The mBot comes with 2 motor appropriate outputs but you can add more with a separate modules.
There are different units for different purposes, here is a link to one kind:
http://www.makeblock.cc/me-dual-dc-motor-driver/

#3

Thanks for your reply.

#4

Thanks Danjger…I would be very happy if you could explain how to connect the dual-dc-motor-driver to the mBot as I believe you can’t just connect it to one of the 4 ports given they do not have power…also how I would program more than 2 motors using mBlock?

#5

(see my next post before bashing me on this one :smile: )
The ports have power but they need a speed control (vary the voltage) so you can control the speed of the motors. That is the main job of the DC motor controllers. You have to realize that the power for the motors in the mBot implementation is also the power you provide the mBot mainboard so you have to provide enough voltage and current capability to drive all the motors. 4 AA batteries will be just enough for the two small motors and maybe one more but if you want bigger motors and more torque you will need to put more power to the board but there is a limit to how much this unit will handle. There actually many many ways to deal with this problem. See this thread for some discussion on that.
I’ll see if I can setup some sample code to drive additional motors on a mBot using the Makeblock or Arduino extensions.

#6

OMG, I just realized what you meant. There are no RED ports on an mBot. You could probably get away with adding external power on the DC motor driver module (soldering required) but I totally see that the mBot isn’t able to directly work with additional motors. I guess you might need an Orion board or something like the controller board from the other post I linked.

#7