Bluefruit Shield + PWM motors = No worky?

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tblount70
 
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Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2014 9:47 pm

Bluefruit Shield + PWM motors = No worky?

Post by tblount70 »

I have successfully set up a test program using the adafruit TFT/joystick shield on top of a bluefruit shield on top of an Uno R3. I have reliable uploads and serial monitor working through the Bluefruit.

What I want to do is swap the TFT for a motor shield (not purchased through adafruit).

I have run the motor shield on the Uno, and it runs perfectly.

When I stack the motor shield on top Bluefruit on top of Uno, the motor shield doesn't work.

I have attached a pdf schematic of the motor shield. It uses D8,9,10,11,12,13 which I think are not tied to the bluefruit at all.
D8 is motor shield IN 1 (motor A)
D9 is motor shield EA which is PWM enable for motor A
D10 is motor shield EB which is PWM enable for motor B
D11 is motor shield IN 2 (motor A)
D12 is motor shield IN 3 (motor B)
D13 is motor shield IN 4 (motor B)

There are LEDs on the motor shield for status of IN1,2,3,4. So I can tell when I run w/o Bluefruit that all four signals are working. When I insert the Bluefruit, only IN1 works. Again, I removed the Bluefruit and the motor shield worked perfectly - motors run per my program and all four LEDs light showing proper IN1,2,3,4 status.

I was thinking maybe there were some undocumented pins used by Bluefruit, or maybe a bad stacking header. So my next step was to put the motor shield on a breadboard and try jumpering signals over (from Bluefruit stacking headers to the breadboard). I changed D11 to D7, and 'voila' IN2 LED started lighting up properly when I ran the program. Then I moved D12 to D6. No worky. No LED status on IN 3 and in fact the LED status gained in the prior step (IN2) was gone.

I'm really wondering if the motor shield is somehow starving the Uno outputs. Or maybe there's some other hardware incompatibility between the motor shield and the Bluefruit?

I have also attached the png of the Bluefruit shield which I found elsewhere in the forum.

Any help greatly appreciated. This was supposed to be a project to lure my son away from the TV this summer (just now getting around to it).

Tim

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tblount70
 
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Re: Bluefruit Shield + PWM motors = No worky?

Post by tblount70 »

attachments...
Attachments
EZ-Link_shield_v1-1.png
EZ-Link_shield_v1-1.png (45.18 KiB) Viewed 290 times
Motor_Shield_V1.0_Schematic.png
Motor_Shield_V1.0_Schematic.png (58.76 KiB) Viewed 290 times

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Bluefruit Shield + PWM motors = No worky?

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

I have attached a pdf schematic of the motor shield. It uses D8,9,10,11,12,13 which I think are not tied to the bluefruit at all.
Pins 10,11,12 and 13 are the SPI pins and the BlueFruit shield uses SPI via the ICSP header.

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tblount70
 
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Re: Bluefruit Shield + PWM motors = No worky?

Post by tblount70 »

Thank you. I will mount the shield alongside the Uno and use different I/O. Will report back my results.

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