what is the best way to attach a dc motor to the bbb without a cape or motor controler???

thanks so much,
JonnyZ

Question

what is the best way to attach a dc motor to the bbb without a cape or motor controler??? thanks so much, JonnyZ

shabaz · Answer

Hi Jonny, If you're talking about a smallish motor (say a few hundred mA and maybe no higher than 12V) then a single BJT/resistor is fine (resistor of maybe 1k in series with the base of the transistor). Note that you may need a darlington type arrangement because the gain of the transistor may likely not be sufficient. Yes definitely place some diode across the motor it will fail without it - a small 1N4148 should be fine for a small motor. And a capacitor, maybe 100nF across the supply rails. (Also, you may need to power this from a separate supply, rather than from the BBB header, unless it really is a low power motor. Some motors don't need a lot of current at all, but some do :-(

saurocksall · Answer

Hi Jonny,

If you want to eliminate spikes produced by the motor connect a small ceramic capacitor say 0.1mF parallel to the motor, i do this regularly with my projects to handle the spikes which burned my ic once...