I’d like to create an installation using 12 x vibration motors. I’m going to follow the tutorial from the SparkFun page. I’ve never used vibrator motors and the Sparkfun RedBoard before (I’ve used Arduino boards), so before I order a bunch of motors, I’d like to make sure I’m ordering things correctly.
Theoretically, I should be able to control 12 vibration motors from Cycling 74 Max 9 by connecting to my laptop using the serial object.
So I’m going to get 1 x Redboard, 12 x Haptic Motor Drivers, and 12 x vibrator motors.
Has anyone tried this? Is there anything else I should consider in terms of more power or any potential issues of connecting that many motors to one board?
So, 12 will be slightly tricky for 2 reasons, each depends on the protocol you plan to use…
If you use i2c you’ll need 2 muxes, 2 qwiic cables to connect to them, and 12 of these Flexible Qwiic Cable - Breadboard Jumper (4-pin) - SparkFun Electronics - after getting everything connected you’ll need to disable all but one set of i2c pull up resistors (I recommend leaving one mux’s intact, disconnecting the other mux’s and all of the haptic drivers’…you perform this by de-soldering the ‘i2c’ solder blob on them). Finally you’d set virtual i2c addresses for the driver boards and you’d be all set
If you use PWM/analog, you’d need a 2nd redboard as they only have 6 PWM output pins…you could also use a different board that has more such as SparkFun RedBoard Artemis ATP - SparkFun Electronics. It works with arduino just like a redboard, you just make sure you look at its hookup guide as well to understand what menu selections to make in Arduino IDE
Thank you so much for answering my question. Sorry, even though I have a bit of experience with Arduino, I’m not so good at electronics!
I have a limited budget, so based on your description, using 12 ERM motors can be challenging. Can you tell me which pins are PWM/analog output pins for SparkFun RedBoard Artemis ATP, and how many? I assumed that I could control the vibration speed for ERM if I use analog output. Is this correct? Or is it simply on and off?
PWM is a variable signal, you can control each output independently. On the board there will a ~ symbol next to each PWM-capable pin…they’re the ones with a squiggle in this photo
On of the main tips I’ll give is to hook up one driver & motor first, then proceed to add the others…use the hookup guide for the haptic, you might need to adjust pin # in the code and delete the input side of things, substituting for however you’d like it to function (instead of the example’s photocell)
Hi, I have a question related to connecting all 12 haptic motors. Based on your description, it seems like it is better to use Qwiic Haptic Driver DA7280 to connect everything with 2 x muxes. If I understood your explanation correctly, I need to de-solder the second mux’s i2c solder blob and all the haptic drivers’ i2c solder blobs connected to the second mux - this is a bit scary as I’m not so good at soldering, but I will try
Wouldn’t it require an external power source to run all the haptic motors, though? Do you have any advice?
You got it! That is correct, except you’ll want to disconnect all haptix drivers’ jumpers…not just the ones connected to the 2nd mux. So, for intact jumpers you’ll just leave the 1st mux’s active, disable the 2nd mux’s, and disable all of the motor drivers’
Thank you so much for answering! In the end, I will go for only 6 haptic motors due to my limited budget.
I’m currently checking the difference between the DRV2605L haptic driver and DA7280, and based on the PWM mode instructions, it seems like DA7280 is only limited to use 9 and 10 with the Sparkfun Redboard using the TimerOne Arduino Library by Paul Stoffregen, while DRV2605L doesn’t have such a limit. Is this correct?
Sorry for asking too many questions! But I have a limited budget, so I’d like to make sure I understand things correctly before ordering things.
