Pololu simple high power motor 18V25

Hello

I am trying to use the pololu simple motor controller board of 18v25 to control a linear actuator. I wanted to do a simple verification test before setting it up with the actuator or any motor. I connected it using one of the specified techinque using potentiometer and used a bulb inplace of a motor but I am facing a few issues

In the pololu controller software i see that Safe start violation is showing a NO and the Low VIN is showing NO consequently showing error motor unable to rotate and I guess due to the Low VIN issue my bulb aint glowing too.

Kindly help me out on what could cause such an Error and how i could rectify it.

Hello.

I am sorry you are having trouble testing your Simple Motor Controller. It is not clear what kind of bulb you are connecting across the motor controller outputs, but in general, you should be able to use a multimeter to measure the voltage of the outputs. Also, so long as your linear actuator is mounted securely, nothing is connected to its output, and the power supplied to the Simple Motor Controller is an appropriate voltage for your actuator, I do not expect any issues controlling it directly from the Simple Motor Control Center. So, you should be able to safely perform an initial test with just those components.

Can you remove the potentiometer from your system, change the “Input Mode” on your Simple Motor Controller to “Serial/USB”, connect your linear actuator and an appropriate supply, and try controlling your linear actuator through the Simple Motor Control Center?

-Jon