Hercules Lite 6V-16V, 8Amp Motor Driver with Current Sensing

Introduction
Hercules Lite 6V-16V, 8Amp Motor Driver has motor current sensing capability. It can take up to 30A peak current load and can be operated up to 20KHz PWM. Motor driver can be interfaced with 3.3V and 5V logic levels. Motor driver has built-in protection from under / over voltage, over temperature and short. Motor driver has terminal block as power connector and a relimate connector for the logic connection. It is suitable for high performance robots, Robocon, Robocup, US First, Battle robots etc.

Specifications

• Operating voltage: 6V to 16V
• Continuous output current: 8Amp
• Peak output current: 30Amps
• Maximum PWM Frequency: 20 KHz
• Current sense: 0.13V per Amp.
• Over voltage and under voltage shutdown
• Thermal shutdown
• Protection against loss of GND and Vcc.
• Motor fault diagnostics outputs for over temperature or short circuit
• Power Connector: 4 Pin Terminal Block
• Logic Connector: 7-Pin relimate connector (2510 type)
• Size: 51.3mm x 27.7mm

Package contains
Hercules Lite 6V-16V, 8Amp Motor Driver with Current Sense
15cm, 7-pin relimate connector with wire
Four 10mm mounting studs
Eight M3 mounting screw

Download Product Manual
Motion control example based on ATMEGA640 Development Board

Important

• Motor driver is factory shipped with 1000uF capacitor mounted across Vcc and Ground on the board as shown in figure below. However for space constrained application you can remove this capacitor and connect it across the supply and as near as possible to the motor driver.
• Use multithread copper wire with at least 1.5mm2 area of cross section for proper current handling capacity.
• It is highly recommended to use of 15A or 20A fuse in between motor driver’s supply line.
• Motor driver is not reverse polarity protected. Applying reverse polarity will instantly damage the motor driver.
• Make sure that motor supply ground and logic ground is common.
• If you change motor’s direction suddenly while motor is moving in one direction even at 4Amps, depending on the type of the motor, surge current may reach to very high value and motor driver may go in to protection mode. Do not reverse the motor’s direction suddenly unless its required. It’s a good practice to give stop command to the motor for 10 to 100 milliseconds between sudden direction changes.

Correct Motor Driver Selection

For generic motion control applications we recommend Hercules series motor driver that provides satisfactory performance at affordable price. However, for precision servo control applications, Super Hercules series motor driver is strongly recommended. Following is the difference between these two series of the motor drivers.

In case of the Hercules series Motor Drivers, the PWM OFF signal switch off the lower MOSFETs. Which means during PWM off period the motor is free wheeling. DC braking is achieved by connecting IN-1 and IN-2 to the logic 1 or logic 0 simultaneously.

Super Hercules series Motor Drivers actually shorts the motor winding during PWM off cycle for tight motion control. It also uses Synchronous Rectification to reduce power dissipation across MOSFETs when motor windings are shorted. In order to do all this, it uses high power MOSFETs and smart motion control methods. In this case, DC braking is achieved by simply setting PWM to logic low.

Interfacing motor driver with the microcontroller

To drive the motor controller you just need PWM, IN-1 and IN-2 pins. These pins can have 5V as well as 3.3V logic levels. Current sense pin can be connected to the ADC of the microcontroller. Diagnostics-1 (DG1) and Diagnostics-2 (DG2) pins are internally pulled up at 5V at the motor driver side and are only required if you want to detect over temperature and short circuit faults. Most of the microcontrollers which operate at 3.3V have 5V tolerant input pins. If pins are not 5V tolerant then to interface them to 3.3V logic level you need to scale down 5V to 3.3V logic using open collector buffers or any other 5V to 3.3V logic converters.

Use Fuse Holder with Fuse Blow Indicator to protect motor driver from overload

Recommended Motors Super Hercules DC Motor with Planetary Gearbox and Side Shaft Super Heavy Duty DC Gear Motors
Recommended Battery Any High discharge 3cell 11.1V Lithium Polymer battery above 1800mAh.

Connections

Motor Connector Pins

Logic input Connections

Note:
Ground of the Motor Connector and Logic input Connector are internally shorted.
If you want to drive motor without using PWM then connect PWM pin to 5V logic level.

Truth Table in Normal Operating Conditions

In all above cases logic 0 and logic 1 on PWM pin will turn off or turn on internal low side MOSFETs.

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