Is my motor shield dead?

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Jander42
 
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Joined: Tue Sep 15, 2020 11:35 pm

Is my motor shield dead?

Post by Jander42 »


Should the ground pin of the featherwing board and the negative terminal of the 6v motor input on the terminal block connect electrically? We are seeing them connected on our multimeter.


We had an electrical incident, our fault, and we are trying to determine if we can trust our "Assembled DC Motor + Stepper FeatherWing Add-on"
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3243

The incident was putting 12V into a digitalIO pin on an RP2040. The connecting pins were hot enough to slightly melt the headers connected to the featherwing. I'm hoping the featherwing passes through that pin and avoided damage (I can figure out exact pin number).

The potential difference between the ground of the USB powering the feather (our new RP2040) and the negative terminal of the battery powering the motor would be 0.25 Volts. That seems like they should not be connected. Waiting for an answer before I try. According to the docs the logic circuit and motor circuits are supposed to be independent.

Thanks!

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Franklin97355
 
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Re: Is my motor shield dead?

Post by Franklin97355 »

In most circuits the grounds are common to allow the devices communication. Just how did you get the voltage to the pin?

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Is my motor shield dead?

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

The motor power ground is connected to the logic circuit ground on the board, so the voltage difference between USB GND and the ground of the motor power terminal should be zero. Although with damage to the headers, the connection between the boards may be compromised.

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