I2C motor controller

[Sam Rossiter]

Zio motor controller is a four channel open hardware motor driver available at reasonable prices.

It uses I2C control, some example code: For ‘scarab’ is here

Or line follower bot code is here

I’d like to use this controller in this little open hardware bot I’m working on. Would anyone do a MicroBlocks library for it?

[John Maloney]

Looks like a nice motor controller board. Can it actually control four DC motors? I ask because this Robotshop description say it can control only two DC motors:

https://www.robotshop.com/products/zio-qwiic-dc-motor-controller-25v-135v-12a-continuous-32a-peak

But perhaps they mean "two stepper motors or four DC motors"?

If it is really four DC motors then I may get one and write a library for it. I have a project that could use a lot of channels and I like the fact that these boards can be daisy-chained using qwiic connectors. You can set the I2C addresses by soldering jumpers on the bottom of the board.

[Sam Rossiter]

Yes it’s four DC or two stepper.

Would be fantastic to have a library for it!

[John Maloney]

I tried to buy one but Zio is sold out of them. I hope they restock. I have a project in mind that would use three of these boards to drive 12 solenoids attached to a xylophone.

[Sam Rossiter]

I got mine here: https://themachineshop.uk/product/zio-4-dc-motor-controller-qwiic-2-5-to-13-5v-1-2a-continuous-3-2a-peak/ They’re listing 5 in stock at the moment

[Sam Rossiter]

@John Maloney Did you ever get one of these? I’d love to get my little robot working under Microblocks

[John Maloney]

Yep, I finally got one. I took a quick look at the Adafruit library for the chip and, although it is not as simple as I'd hoped, it should not be too hard to get working. I'm heading to Brussels soon to present MicroBlocks at the FOSDEM conference but I will take a stab at writing a library for the controller when I return.

[John Maloney]

Zio board is now supported as "Zio Four Motor Controller" in the "Motors" folder.