VNH5019 with Arduino: PWM not working for Motor2

Hi,

I’m using a VNH5019 Arduino shield with an Arduino Uno to control a Wild Thumper. I’ve run into a problem where only one of the motors was responding to the controller. The PWM voltage for Motor2 isn’t changing when I increase speed. I have some other VNH5019s that are working fine and I can’t see anything obviously wrong.

I tried using a second Arduino and it seems like it’s having the same problem - is there a way that the VNH5019 could damage pin 10 on the Arduino?

-Albert

Hello, Albert.

I am sorry you are having trouble with your VNH5019 shield. We have not heard of the VNH5019 damaging pins connected to its PWM inputs, so I do not think it is likely that the shield is damaging pin 10 on your Arduino. It seems more likely that the shield’s M2 control is damaged in some way, especially since it sounds like you can replace it with other VNH5019 shields in the exact same setup and get them to work. Was the shield ever working for you? Which Wild Thumper are you using?

-Jon

Hi Jonathan,

I had bought a bunch of shields a little while back and tested them all out, so it was working at one point. I’m using the shields interchangeably with the high torque and high speed versions of the 6-wheeled Wild Thumpers.

The reason I’m suspecting the PWM is that even after disconnecting the motor shield from the Arduino, I’m not able to read a voltage increase on pin 10. That’s the most mysterious part. I’ve got two Arduino/motor shield pairs with similar symptoms that I was trying to get working - I was mixing and matching the Arduinos and shields and didn’t get any combination fully working, so I’m hoping that one damaged controller can’t affect a different Arduino.

-Albert

I am not entirely sure if you are trying to read a voltage on pin 10, or if you are trying to use pin 10 to read an analog voltage from an external source, but it sounds like the former. Can you use digitalWrite() to set the pin high and low, and use a multimeter to read the voltages to see if they make sense? Also, is pin 10 exhibiting the same behavior on both of your Arduino Unos?

-Jon