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Step 5Finishing the motor circuit
Once you've tested the motor circuit and gotten it to work with the switch controlling its direction and the potentiometer controlling its speed you are ready to finish the circuit by finding a way to mount the motor to a surface and keep it steady and getting the circuit to run without a computer.
I decided to to use a plastic bottle cap to hold the motor and attached it to a flower pot base with glue.
You can get the circuit to run without a computer simply by running DC power into the Arduino. In my case, I use the Diecimila and there is a jumper that I have to switch to allow it to run on DC power rather than USB power. The newer models have this automatically set up, so you may not need to do this step. Once plugged in with the DC plug, the Arduino should light up as usual. You can now swap out the DC power source from before on your circuit to the Vin output of the Arduino. That is the only change that you have to make. In the previous circuit, you had to give the external power supply common ground with the Arduino, but the Vin output of the Arduino is already sharing this common ground.
The circuit behaves a little differently in this configuration. The switches in direction take more time to happen and the motor will not run as hot as it would with a pure 9V external power supply. However, for my purposes I found the sudden stops between changes in direction to be mechanically helpful to the way I want my rotating mic setup to work as it makes it less jerky when it shifts direction and possibly lighter wear on the turntable's gears. I also like that I do not need to worry about the use of computer, while still only needing one wall wart to make it all happen.
I decided to to use a plastic bottle cap to hold the motor and attached it to a flower pot base with glue.
You can get the circuit to run without a computer simply by running DC power into the Arduino. In my case, I use the Diecimila and there is a jumper that I have to switch to allow it to run on DC power rather than USB power. The newer models have this automatically set up, so you may not need to do this step. Once plugged in with the DC plug, the Arduino should light up as usual. You can now swap out the DC power source from before on your circuit to the Vin output of the Arduino. That is the only change that you have to make. In the previous circuit, you had to give the external power supply common ground with the Arduino, but the Vin output of the Arduino is already sharing this common ground.
The circuit behaves a little differently in this configuration. The switches in direction take more time to happen and the motor will not run as hot as it would with a pure 9V external power supply. However, for my purposes I found the sudden stops between changes in direction to be mechanically helpful to the way I want my rotating mic setup to work as it makes it less jerky when it shifts direction and possibly lighter wear on the turntable's gears. I also like that I do not need to worry about the use of computer, while still only needing one wall wart to make it all happen.
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