WeMos D1 Mini Motor Drive Shield (HCWEMO0010)

Wemos ESP8266 based development boards and shields
andrew
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Re: WeMos D1 Mini Motor Drive Shield (HCWEMO0010)

Post by andrew » Sun Aug 09, 2020 7:21 am

I'm afraid not as there's no direct access to the control pins of the motor driver IC. The driver IC is controlled by the on-board microcoroller which in turn is controlled via the I2C pins on the module.
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wemosHobby
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Re: WeMos D1 Mini Motor Drive Shield (HCWEMO0010)

Post by wemosHobby » Sun Aug 09, 2020 2:21 pm

I thought control pins only send voltage, and if 5v is suppied to some driver pins [ I don't know which ones] , the motor should spin.
Can Arduino uno be used to test the motor driver?

andrew
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Re: WeMos D1 Mini Motor Drive Shield (HCWEMO0010)

Post by andrew » Mon Aug 10, 2020 9:36 am

I thought control pins only send voltage
No I'm afraid the only control pins brought out to the header pads is the serial I2C pins for the built-in microcontroller.

Can Arduino uno be used to test the motor driver?
I can't say for sure that it will work because the WEMOS_Motor library wasn't written for an Uno but it does compile for an Uno without any errors and a quick look at the source code shows me it's just using the built in Arduino wire library for the I2C. So I can't see any reason why it wouldn't work.
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wemosHobby
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Re: WeMos D1 Mini Motor Drive Shield (HCWEMO0010)

Post by wemosHobby » Tue Aug 11, 2020 3:31 pm

Thank you @andrew
I don't understand why a motor driver should be so complicated. It needs new firmware, RTS and 3V pins connected for a special setting, and no clue on what pins are used between wemos d1 and the driver shield.

Will the driver supply power to wemos d1? or both need seperate power inputs?

I couldn't get this working and no means to troubleshoot.

Can anyone help me identify, if the driver is bricked or not? It is version 1.0.0 driver

andrew
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Re: WeMos D1 Mini Motor Drive Shield (HCWEMO0010)

Post by andrew » Wed Aug 12, 2020 9:13 am

I don't understand why a motor driver should be so complicated.
It's because this module is intended to be used with the Wemos/Lolin D1 range of development boards together with the Wemos library. It uses I2C because the Wemos boards don't have many I/O pins and so by using I2C they can have several other modules connected to them. The module is designed to be stacked on top of a D1 just like an Arduino shield does and most of the pins on either side of the board are just there as a pass-though for the D1 pins below it so they don't actually connect to anything on the motor drive shield.

and no clue on what pins are used between wemos d1 and the driver shield.
These are all the connected pins..


VM...........Motor Power +
VM...........Motor Power -
GND........Ground
GND........Ground
A1.............Motor A pin 1
A2............Motor A pin 2
B2.............Motor B pin 2
B1.............Motor B pin 1

3V3.........3.3V supply
RST..........Reset
D1.............I2C SCL
D2............I2C SDA
GND........Ground

Will the driver supply power to wemos d1? or both need separate power inputs?
No you will need to supply 3.3V power via the 3V3 and GND pins to power the module. Note that all the information I have given is for the version of the module we sell.

If you need a small driver that can be directly controlled by digital pins you may want to take a look at this one:

https://hobbycomponents.com/motor-drive ... r-h-bridge
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wemosHobby
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Re: WeMos D1 Mini Motor Drive Shield (HCWEMO0010)

Post by wemosHobby » Thu Aug 20, 2020 9:43 am

No you will need to supply 3.3V power via the 3V3 and GND pins to power the module. Note that all the information I have given is for the version of the module we sell.
But I thought the driver shield will block 3v3 pin too. [ not sure , if I have to use long header pins]
If I stack driver on top of wemos, and the 3v3 pins are in contact, supplying 3v3 to wemos will be sent to driver ?
Is the driver getting 2 power inputs 1 from VM pins and other from 3v3 via wemos

This is the difficulty I have with this module. I am not sure, if the motor driver is already bricked (or) and I going to brick a proper Wemos D1 V3 because of this driver (or) setup issue last time I tried.

I want to see if this works. Can you suggest a video?
thanks

andrew
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Re: WeMos D1 Mini Motor Drive Shield (HCWEMO0010)

Post by andrew » Sun Aug 23, 2020 8:05 am

But I thought the driver shield will block 3v3 pin too. [ not sure , if I have to use long header pins]
I'm not sure what you mean by this but you must supply 3.3V to this pin for the module to work.
.
If I stack driver on top of wemos, and the 3v3 pins are in contact, supplying 3v3 to Wemos will be sent to driver ?
The Wemos D1 minis have a built in 3.3V regulator. When you power the D1 mini from a 5V supply it supplies power to its 3.3V pin. I.e. on the D1 mini the 3.3V pin is a power output pin whereas on the motor shield it is a power input pin. When you stack motor shield on top of the D1 the 3.3V pins of both boards are connected together and the D1 mini supplies the 3.3V power to the motor drive shield. So when using it with a D1 mini you just need to supply 5V power to the D1 and a separate supply for the motors to the motor drive shields VM pins.


Is the driver getting 2 power inputs 1 from VM pins and other from 3v3 via wemos
Yes that is correct. The power supplied to the VM pin only powers the connected motors. The 3.3V supply powers all the electronics on the shield.
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wemosHobby
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Re: WeMos D1 Mini Motor Drive Shield (HCWEMO0010)

Post by wemosHobby » Fri Oct 16, 2020 9:15 pm

I have given up on original and tried use TB6612FNG. Because I wanted my car to be small, I used 3.7v lipo's ( 2 for TB6612fng and 1 for wemos + common ground)
But it worked sometimes, and made squeaking noise. So thought it is because of low battery power.

It now doesnt spin. Is 3v3 pin output only? Connected as in the attached

Any help appreciated.
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andrew
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Re: WeMos D1 Mini Motor Drive Shield (HCWEMO0010)

Post by andrew » Sat Oct 17, 2020 12:34 pm

Is 3v3 pin output only?
I've taken a look at the schematic for the D1 mini and I can't see any reason why it wouldn't work by powering it from the 3.3V pin. One important thing to note though is that the maximum supply voltage for the ESP8266 is 3.6V and your battery is 3.7V. So you'd need to drop that a little by putting a diode in series with the battery.

One other piece of advice is in your current configuration don't connect anything to the USB whilst your battery is connected as it will attempt to put 5V across the battery and bad things will happen.
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Elape
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Re: WeMos D1 Mini Motor Drive Shield (HCWEMO0010)

Post by Elape » Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:42 pm

I'm on my 2nd one of these in a month now as I thought the first one I received was faulty.

Unlike the images in the OP I have received V2 of the board and unfortunately they just don't seem want to play ball at all.
As others have reported it doesn't show up on a bus scan. I've hooked up a BME/BPE280 module to the same dev board and it picks it up no problem at all.

I can't use the supplied sketch as the V2 modules appear to use a new library which I have downloaded from Lolin's git hub repository.

I'm using Lolin/Wemos D1 Mini boards to interface with them but have also tried hooking it up to an Arduino with Dupont cables but that is unable to see the board either.

Getting quite frustrated with these now, any guidance would be much appreciated.

Regards

ElApe.

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