Arduino Motor Shield is based on the L298 controller, which is a dual H-bridge ideal for driving inductive components such as relays, coils, motors to power DC and stepper motors.

This shield can be controlled easily two motors continuous driving the direction of rotation and the speed of each, but it is also easy to drive a motor step-by-step to 4 channels.

A measure of consumption current for each engine is also available.

This shield is also compatible to the elements TinkerKit is prepared:

• 2 TinkerKit connectors for 2 analog inputs (A2 and A3 pines)
• 2 TinkerKit connectors for 2 outputs analog PWM (pine D5 and D6)
• 2 TinkerKit connectors for TWI interfaces.

Features:

• Power supply: 5V to 12V by a screw connector.
• Motor controller: L298 - 2 Motors continuous or a stepper motor
• Max current: 2A max per engine or 4 has max with an external supply
• Measure of consumption: 1.65V / A
• Braking of the motor (deccelaration) function
• Model: R3 Rev3 with pinout 1.0

Operation:

Has shield of 2 channels, A and B, which uses each 4 pins of the Arduino. Both channels can be used separately in order to drive two motors continuous, or together to control a stepper motor.

Distributions of the pines:

It is possible to disable the "Brake" and "Consumption" by separating the junctions on the underside of the card. This allows to recover these pines for another use.

Documentation:

Arduino Motor Shield Rev3 documentation: http://Arduino.cc/en/main/ArduinoMotorShieldR3

The L298 datasheet: CD00000240.PDF

Schematic of the Arduino Motor Shield: http://Arduino.cc/en/uploads/main/arduino_MotorShield_Rev3-schematic.PDF