SAMI Drives Your Micro Gearmotors with PID via I2C

As popular and versatile as Arduinos and other microcontroller development boards are, most can’t — or shouldn’t — be used to drive motors directly. Motors require a lot of current and create a high impedance when they spin, which isn’t safe for the relatively delicate pins of a microcontroller. So, you need a motor driver to act as an intermediary, and SAMI is the perfect smart motor driver for your micro gearmotors.

A motor driver provides two very important functions: it separates the current used to spin the motor from your microcontroller circuit, and it allows you to control the speed, direction, and position of the motor. Both are absolutely necessary for most designs that incorporate a motor, but many commercial motor drivers are bulky or difficult to use. SAMI is easy to use and intended specifically for compact micro gearmotors, and has a built-in Hall effect sensor and microcontroller for precise speed and position control.

That microcontroller also make this a “smart” motor driver, so it can be controlled by your Arduino via I2C communication. That means you’ll only need a few wires to connect it to the Arduino, and you can chain multiple SAMI boards together. It can handle motor voltage up to 11V, and continuous current up to 1.7A with a 1.8A peak. Logic voltage is 3V to 5V. At $15.99, it’s a little bit more expensive than commodity motor drivers, but it should work a lot better for small robotics projects.