line following robot - do i need 2 motor drives to control 4 motors

i'm making a line following robot with 4, 6V dc motors. I'm currently using L293D motor drive. My current idea is to connect two motors with each of the output pins. But i'm afraid this configuration may burn the chip. But in the data sheet, they said each output pins can deliver upto 600 mA. The motors i'm using need 120 mA. Can anyone help me.

colecago over 11 years ago

Putting motors in parallel off a single drive doesn't work well. Motors are pretty dynamic devices and if one stalls it will take all the current from the other one in parallel causing weird behavior. Why are you using 4 motors instead of 2 anyways? Couldn't you use two motors and then some type of center caster wheel or something and then do tank controls?
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Cancel
Former Member over 11 years ago in reply to colecago

the reason i'm using 4 wheels is because in the competition, the robot has to climb a 15 degree incline to pick up a box. My current robot is 2 wheels and I tried to climb it on the incline, but it couldn't climb it. Does that mean, I have to use two motor drives, to operate the 4 motors??
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Cancel
colecago over 11 years ago in reply to Former Member

Well you probably won't hurt the driver chip, but it might not work properly, so I'd say try it. If they aren't loaded too heavily it might work okay, but in general you don't want to put two brushed motors in parallel when each experiences differing loads.
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Sign in to reply

Cancel