The Pololu high-power motor drivers are compact carriers for the VNH3SP30 and VNH2SP30 motor driver integrated circuits from ST. The board incorporates most of the components of the typical application diagram on page 8 of the VNH2SP30 datasheet, including pull-up and current-limiting resistors and a FET for reverse battery protection. (The current sense circuit is populated on both versions of the board, but only the VNH2SP30 supports current sense.) All you need to add is a microcontroller or other control circuit to turn the H-Bridge on and off.

Please note that we offer several other products based on these same chips, including dual carrier boards for driving two motors, the qik 2s10v12 dual serial motor controller, the TReX motor controller, the jrk 12v12 USB motor controller with feedback, and the Orangutan X2 robot controller. We also have a family of higher-power motor drivers that can deliver more current over a wider operating voltage range.

In a typical application, the motor power supply is connected at the bottom of the board, the motor on the right side of the board, and the control connections to the left side of the board. The diagnostic pins can be left disconnected if you do not want to monitor the fault conditions of the motor driver chip. INA and INB control the direction of the motor, and the PWM pin turns the motor on or off. For the VNH2SP30 version, the current sense (CS) pin will output approximately 0.13 volts per amp of output current. If you want to add current sensing to the VNH3SP30 version, or if you want higher-accuracy current sensing with the VNH2SP30 version, please consider our ±30A ACS714 current sensor carrier.