Wiring a motor to the RPi?

Look up an H Bridge circuit.  I have had good luck with this kit with an Arduino.  I made a roller robot.  I tried and failed with TIP102 and TIP107 but I am clumsier than most.  If you go this route,

buy extra transistors in case you fry them.

Look at http://www.mcmanis.com/chuck/robotics/tutorial/h-bridge/.  Follow the links to basic transistor etc.

The H bridge would have one output for forward and one for backwards.  The kit controls 2 motors.

I think with the new gert board, it comes with software so you should be able to run it just fine.

i have bought one

I guess I will just wait.

Hope it all works out for you   I don't have a gertboard or an RPi so I'm afraid I can't offer a great amount of help.

That's ok,  I have a friend helping me work this out.  I think he has almost got it.  I will post the results when he completes the build.

UPDATE:

My friend and I have created a circuit that can run a motor one direction at one speed THROUGH the GPIO on the Raspberry Pi.  We are working on two directions now.

My friend plans to use a H-bridge to get some two direction action.

Ken Seymour wrote:

 

Look up an H Bridge circuit.  I have had good luck with this kit with an Arduino.  I made a roller robot.  I tried and failed with TIP102 and TIP107 but I am clumsier than most.  If you go this route,

buy extra transistors in case you fry them.

 

Look at http://www.mcmanis.com/chuck/robotics/tutorial/h-bridge/.  Follow the links to basic transistor etc.

 

The H bridge would have one output for forward and one for backwards.  The kit controls 2 motors.

Could you draw up a schematic diagram for me if I use this: https://www.adafruit.com/products/807.  My friend has informed me that a H-Bridge is required and I found this IC and I think that it could work nicely.

I have not created schematics except with pencil and paper.  I noticed that his is a 5 Volt chip and the Pi outputs are 3.3 Volt.

I am working on a schematic with 2N3906 transistors to level-shift the outputs.  If you power the motors off 5V as well, it avoids two power supplies.

Motors are powered off 12volts.  Did you look at the Double H-Bridge IC I posted earlier?

Here is the schematic.  JP1 is meant to be the motor.  I should mention that the transistor logically invert their signals.

When the GPIO is high, the chip input is low. So from the Pi's perspective, they are active when they are zero.

You need two power supplies.  The solarbotics board has an on board regulator to provide the +5 volts.

The Pi only has one PWM output, so you could do PWM in software but get the motor going fast first.

Make sure the motor fits within the chip's power output max or just buy extra chips.

The 2N2222A2N2222A is cheap.  Buy extra.  I live in the US so I would get them here. http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_38236_-1.

Or use Newark/element 14, or Digikey, or Mauser.

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