Motor Adapter for myRIO

Overview

The Motor Adapter for NI myRIO allows you to easily connect and control either one stepper motor, two DC motors or two servos independently through the MXP connector on your myRIO. It has been designed so that no additional circuitry is required to drive motors. The board uses the Allegro A4973, a powerful full-bridge, bidirectional PWM motor controller - just supply power and you're on your way!

Servo motors are connected via standard 3-pin headers while DC motors are connected via 6-pin or screw terminal connectors and stepper motors are connected using screw terminals. PWM signals from the standard myRIO FPGA personality are routed to the DC and servo motor inputs. Motor 0 Quadrature encoder inputs are routed to the myRIO encoder inputs and Motor 1 are routed to general purpose digital I/O. Filtered motor voltage and current are routed back to the myRIO analog inputs to enable real-time monitoring.

Key Features:

• Uses the myRIO Expansion Port (MXP) connector
• Can be use to control 2 DC motors, 1 stepper motor, or 2 RC servos
• Current/voltage sensing and control with high/low gain control and over-current protection
• 6V-16V input voltage using screw-terminal supply connections
• 34-pin female breakout allowing direct user access to signal pins
• Onboard quadature encoder interface to myRIO encoder inputs
• Power LED indicator

Connector Pin-outs

Motor PWR : DC Motor Power Screw-terminal Block

Servos PWR : Servo Motor Power Screw-terminal Block

Motor 1 and Motor 2 : Digilent standard 6-pin motor/encoder connector (see Digilent Gearmotor)

Using the Adapter with myRIO

Compatibility Notes