I am looking at a couple motor drivers for a robot I am working on, but I have run into the issue of not really understanding spec sheets and knowing what specs I need to look out for to make everything work. Some of these come up easily on google and others do not.
So what are the specs to normally look out for when wiring up motors and motor drivers?
And what is logic voltage vs drive voltage? (L298n)
Number of channels? (L9110s)
Max continuous per channel? (L9110s again)
IC chips have a logic level that specifies what voltage levels will be read as logical low/0 or logical high/1. The most common values are 5V or 3.3V for logical high/1 and 0V for logical low/0. Drive voltage is the range of voltage the chip can provide to drive the motor itself.
Two channels will simply allow you to drive two motors independently.
The maximum current per channel is the current the chip can provide per channel(surprise!). Meaning in simple terms that once the max current of 800mA is reached, the chip will "cap off" the current. This allows you to determine e.g. whether your chip can drive your chosen motor correctly or not.
1) Logic voltage is the voltage used for the control (PWM) inputs. Drive voltage is the voltage used to power the motor itself.
2) Number of channels: "Can drive two bidirectional DC motor or a four line two phase stepper motor". So, each channel can drive one DC motor. (Stepper motors are more complicated,.
3) Max continuous current per channel: This one is pretty self explanatory, so I'm not sure what you're having trouble understanding. But this is the maximum current that the driver can continually provide to the motor (if the motor draws more current than this, the driver might overheat)
