This week’s labs focused on powering a DC motor (the labs can be found here and here), and controlling current with a transistor and H-bridge. A transistor acts as an electronic switch, and is useful when using more than one power supply, while requiring motor control from the circuit board. The Arduino board is powered by the laptop, while the DC motor is powered with a 9V battery. A potentiometer was used to control motor speed.
For better control, an H-bridge is introduced. This allows directional control of the motor shaft with the press of a switch. Furthermore, using the analogWrite() function while programming the Arduino allows for setting a speed for the motor.