Stingray: Arduino and SN754410 H-bridges?

cschaefer

I'm considering purchasing a Stingray but want to use an Arduino Mega2560 as my microcontroller board. I was also considering using the TI SN754410 dual H-bridge for controlling the two brushed motors. Judging from the specs I've seen on the Stingray and the 200 RPM motors, this doesn't appear to be a problem as long as I don't place too much demand on the motors and keep current below 1A continuous. Anyone see any issues with the Arduino and/or the TI SN754410?

Carl

Martin_H

That should work, but if the current demands turn out to be too high you can stack TI's SN754410 to increase its current handling. Here's an article on the technique:

http://letsmakerobots.com/node/10509

The current output doesn't scale linearly, so you won't get a full 2 A per channel with two chips stacked, but you'll have considerably more headroom.

Gadget Gangster used to sell a Propeller platform board that stacked four of them, and didn't require soldering the chips together. This board was discussed a while back in the Pololu forum and someone pointed out that while two is OK, four is probably too much of a good thing. The reason is that the current consumption of the logic side of the SN754410 increases with each chip you add. So four of them will start to bust the current budget for many voltage regulators.

cschaefer

Thanks! The link was very helpful.