Unit 4: Make a Motor Go

Try connecting a motor to pin 13 and GND as shown in the diagram below.

If you run the Blink program, the motor should turn on for one second and off for one second.

Try it and see how well it works.

Now try doing the same thing when you have a battery connected to the Arduino like this

The wee black thing is the transistor. There is a better photo of it below. The resistor is 1200 ohms. (Brown, red, red)

With this circuit, pin 13 is just used to turn on the transistor and the transistor supplies the current to make the motor go. Does the motor seem to be working well now?

The diagram above does not show clearly which way round to connect the resistor. this photo should help:

The USB cable does not supply enough power to make a motor work, but the battery has got plenty of power. Does the motor work well now?

Now we are going to try another way of boosting power to the motor. This is by using a transistor which can amplify the current that is coming out of pin 13.

Here is the circuit:

NOTE: You still need to have the battery connected to the Arduino if you want the motor to run strongly.

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