The L293D Motor Driver/Servo Shield for Arduino is probably one of the most versatile on the market and features 2 servo and 4 motor connectors for DC or stepper motors. That makes it a great shield for any robotic project.

This Arduino-compatible motor Driver shield is a full-featured product that can be used to drive 4 DC motors or two 4-wire steppers and two 5v servos. It drives the DC motor and stepper with the L293D, and it drives the servo with Arduino pins 9 and pins 10.

The shield contains two L293D motor drivers and one 74HC595 shift register. The shift register expands 3 pins of the Arduino to 8 pins to control the direction of the motor drivers. The output enables the L293D to be directly connected to the PWM outputs of the Arduino Uno R3.

Firmware:

Arduino Stepper/Servo software library with micro stepping support. To install, click on Download in the top right corner, select zip and uncompress the folder.
Rename the folder to AF-motor (check that the renamed folder contains the .cpp and .h files) and install it into the Arduino sketches/libraries folder. For information on how to use and install libraries, see our tutorial! This version now works with Mega. Public domain!
AccelStepper library with AFMotor support. This library allows for advanced stepper control including acceleration and deceleration, and concurrent stepper control!
To install, click on Download in the top right corner, select zip and uncompress the folder.
Rename the folder to AF-motor (check that the renamed folder contains the .cpp and .h files) and install it into the Arduino sketches/libraries folder.

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Power Supply To L293D Motor Driver Shield:

There exist three scenarios when it comes to supplying power for the motors through the shield.

Single DC power supply for both Arduino and motors: If you would like to have a single DC power supply for both Arduino and motors, simply plug it into the DC jack on the Arduino or the 2-pin EXT_PWR block on the shield. Place the power jumper on the motor shield. You can employ this method only when the motor supply voltage is less than 12V.
(Recommended) Arduino powered through USB and motors through a DC power supply: If you would like to have the Arduino powered off of USB and the motors powered off of a DC power supply, plug in the USB cable. Then connect the motor supply to the EXT_PWR block on the shield. Do not place the jumper on the shield.
Two separate DC power supplies for the Arduino and motors: If you would like to have 2 separate DC power supplies for the Arduino and motors. Plugin the supply for the Arduino into the DC jack, and connect the motor supply to the EXT_PWR block. Make sure the jumper is removed from the motor shield.

An L293D walkthrough:

The L293D motor driver shield includes two L293 motor driver ICs and a 74HC595 shift register IC. The shield has several important components.

The Motor Driver:

The L293D is a dual-channel H-bridge motor driver that can control two DC motors or a stepper motor at one time. As there are two L293D ICs on the shield, it’s technically capable of controlling a total of four DC motors.

This is ideal for two and four-wheel robot platforms. The IC consists of two H-bridge to control the motors, each delivering p to 0.6A to a motor.

The Shift Register:

The 74HC595 is an 8-bit serial input and serial/parallel output shift register. It’s used to extend four Arduino GPIO (or another microcontroller) to eight-direction control pins for two of the L293D motor driver ICs.

Using the L293D with Arduino:

Arduino’s L293D motor driver shield is compatible with Arduino Mega and UNO. The shield can be fitted on top of the Arduino board.

In such cases, six analog pins including pins 2 and 13 remain free for use.

To control the servo motor, use:

Pins 2, 9, and 10.

To control the DC motors, use:

Pin 11 for the motor port M1
Pin 3 for the motor port M2
Pin 5 for the motor port M3
Pin 6 for the motor port M4
Pins 4, 7, 8, and 12 may also all be used

To control the stepper motors, use:

Pins 11 and 3 for the motor port M1-M2
Pins 5 and 6 for the motor port M2-M3
Pins 4, 7, 8, and 12 may also all be used

Vayuyaan believes in satisfied customers, so whatever the product is we first import them and then test them for their supplier-defined and standard capabilities. After all the possible quality checks, we make the product available to our customers.

Features of L293D Motor Driver Shield for Arduino:

2 connections for 5V ‘hobby’ servos connected to the Arduino’s high-resolution dedicated timer
4 H-Bridges: L293D chipset provides 0.6A per bridge (1.2A peak) with thermal shutdown protection and internal kickback protection diodes. Can run motors on 4.5VDC to 25VDC.
Up to 4 bi-directional DC motors with individual 8-bit speed selection (so, about 0.5% resolution)
Up to 2 stepper motors (unipolar or bipolar) with single coil, double coil, or interleaved stepping.
Pull-down resistors keep motors disabled during power-up
Big terminal block connectors to easily hook up wires (18-26AWG) and power
The Arduino reset button brought up top
2-pin terminal block and jumper to connect external power, for separate logic/motor supplies
Tested compatible with Arduino Mega 1280 & 2560, Diecimila, Duemilanove, and UNO
Download the easy-to-use Arduino software library, check out the examples and you’re ready to go!