Labs
1. Transistor and Relay
In this lab, I learned how to control a high-current load/voltage DC motor (Gearmotor) with the help of Arduino. It was possible to control the high voltage because the transistor acts like an electronic switch (in this case, I used a bipolar Darlington transistor - TIP120). When a small current is applied between the base (first leg) and the emitter (third leg), a larger current flows between the emitter and the collector (second leg) of the transistor. The base/gate leg of the transistor is connected to a digital pin of the Arduino and the emitter is connected to the ground. The amount of current is then controlled by a potentiometer linked to an analog input of the Arduino. Then I connected the motor to the circuit via a DC power supply and the transistor. I probably used a very strong power supply because my motor started emitting smoke after a few seconds.
The second lab this week was meant to control the DC motor's direction using a DC Motor Driver. In this lab, I used an H-Bridge Motor Driver (TB6612FNG) to try to reverse the direction of the current in the motor. A pushbutton was added as the digital input trigger for the direction switch. Then I connected the motor driver as directed in the lab description and uploaded the given code, but nothing seemed to happen. I checked the code as well as the circuit multiple times but yeah it just didn't work.
