HOW DOES IT WORK?

DC Motor 21 Click as its foundation uses the A3910, a dual half-bridge motor driver designed for low voltage power applications from Allegro Microsystems. This Click board™ is controlled via several GPIO pins of the mikroBUS™ socket and has a wide operating voltage range with an output current capacity of 500mA maximum. The integrated MOSFETs, which configures a half-bridge circuit inside the A3910, provide the possibility to drive dual DC motors but also allow to be used in the full-bridge configuration to drive a single bidirectional DC motor. Thanks to its plane features and benefits, this Click board™ is targeted at the consumer market with end applications to low voltage equipment.

Using an integrated MOS switch improves braking action for the motor, compared to implementation with a simple clamp diode. Besides, it also features built-in protection such as crossover current and thermal shutdown protection, alongside "Sleep" Standby mode with zero drain-current.

As mentioned in the product description, DC Motor 21 Click communicates with MCU using several GPIO pins. To turn ON the internal MOSFETs of the A3910, they need to be switched by the logic level, which is input to the control input pins: HN1, LN1, HN2, and LN2 pins routed to the AN, CS, PWM, and INT pins of the mikroBUS™ socket. Thereby, the Drive/Break/Coast/Sleep motor functions can be selected according to the state of its input control signals.

This Click board™ can operate with both 3.3V and 5V logic voltage levels selected via the VCC SEL jumper. This way, it is allowed for both 3.3V and 5V capable MCUs to use communication lines properly. However, the Click board™ comes equipped with a library containing easy-to-use functions and an example code that can be used, as a reference, for further development.