MS101 Makerspace

Expt. 4: Arduino Familiarization and Motor Control

Department of Electrical Engineering

Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay

February 2025

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Arduino Nano Board

Arduino Nano uses a

USB mini connector to
connect to a laptop/PC.
It derives power
through the USB.
The board can be
plugged directly into a
breadboard for trial
circuits.
Diagram showing pins
Some of the inexpensive nano boards need special drivers (CH 340) with
Windows. The driver can be downloaded from:
https://www.wch-ic.com/downloads/CH341SER_ZIP.html
A tutorial for installing it is available at:
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-install-ch340-drivers/all
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 Powering up the Arduino board

Power to the Arduino

Nano board may be
supplied:
1 Through the USB
connector.
(Nano uses a mini
USB connector)
2 Through the Vin
pin (bottom left in
the figure to the
right).

The “power on” LED will light up when power is applied.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)
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 Programming Arduino Boards

Arduino boards are programmed using an Integrated

Development Environment (IDE) running on a laptop or PC.
Detailed instructions were put up on moodle for installing the IDE
depending on your operating system.
YOU SHOULD HAVE INSTALLED THE IDE ON YOUR LAPTOP
BEFORE COMING TO THE LAB.
Note that the current version of the IDE is version 2.3.0.
In order to communicate with your board, the IDE needs to know
1 The type of your board (Uno/Nano/. . . ), and
2 The serial line you will use for connecting the card to the laptop/PC.
The write up on moodle provides all details which are required for
setting up these two parameters for the IDE.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Programming Arduino Boards: Some terminology

Arduino programs which follow a pattern suitable for event-driven

applications are called sketches.
A sketch has two parts – the initialization part which is run first
(and only once), and the repetitive part which runs in a perpetual
loop.
You need to define two functions (called “setup” and “loop”) which
provide these two parts. These functions receive no parameters
from the calling code and return nothing to the caller (void type).
These functions are to be written in Arduino flavour of C or C++.
Many pre-defined functions for specific actions are available as
libraries. These functions can be called from your setup( ) or
loop( ) code, which makes it easy to write software for
applications.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Experiments for Lab. 4

This experiment has two parts: part A is for familiarization with Arduino
board, its Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and software.
Part B is for controlling motors using Arduino boards.
In part 4A, we shall carry out 5 simple experiments using Arduino.
1 LED Blink experiment for Digital output – to be done before
coming to the lab to test your board and IDE installation.
2 LED fade experiment for Pulse Width Modulated outputs.
3 Switch reading (digital input) and serial output,
4 Reading voltage output from a potentiometer as an illustration of
analog input.
For this lab, we’ll use ready made example programs available in the
Arduino IDE with minimal modifications.

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 Experiments for Lab. 4
Before starting the experiments, it is assumed that
1 you have read this document and an earlier file (Introduction to
Arduino) that we had put on moodle.
2 You have acquired an Arduino board.
3 You have installed and checked the IDE according to your
operating system.
4 You have checked the Arduino board by connecting it to your
laptop using an appropriate type of cable – USB A on the laptop
side and USB B on micro-controller side for Arduino Uno and a
mini USB connector for Arduino Nano.
5 You have run the blink experiment (described next) before coming
to the lab.
Connect the board to your laptop through the USB cable and start the
IDE according to the conventions of your OS (for example, by double
clicking on the program name).
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 Expt. 4 – IDE set up

In the IDE, click on the down arrow in the window labelled as

“Select Board” and choose to “Select Other Board and Port”.
In the search window, type Nano and the board option for Arduino
Nano will come up. Click on it and a tick mark will appear against
the name.
(You could also scroll down the alphabetical list of boards to select
your board).
Click on the serial port shown on the right half of the window. A
tick mark will appear here as well. Click on OK to select these
choices.
The code for a previously run program may be already displayed
in the editing window. However, we shall begin with a fresh
ready-made program.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Expt. 4A-1 – Digital Output and delay: Blinking an LED

Objective: Familiarization with Arduino and its IDE.

This experiment does not require any external circuit or instruments.
You should perform it before coming to the lab to check that your
board is working properly and the IDE is installed correctly.
Click on the File tab and choose “Examples->01-Basics->Blink.
A fresh edit window will open with the sketch for Blink loaded in it.
Read through the comments to understand what the program is
supposed to do and notice the function calls used.
Click on the “Sketch” tab and choose to verify/compile. The IDE
responds with “Done compiling”. (A short cut for this is control-R).
Click on the “Sketch” tab again and choose to “Upload”. The IDE
responds with “Done uploading”. (A short cut for this is control-U).
The → icon on top can be used to compile and upload in one go.
The Blink program starts running. Admire your handiwork lovingly.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Expt. 4A – Digital Output and delay: Blinking an LED

Now we’ll tinker with the sketch . . .

This part will be done in the lab.
Change the on-time/off-time to 500 ms/1500 ms in the sketch by
modifying the appropriate numbers in the code.
Compile and upload again and run it to observe a different ratio of
on and off time for the LED.
Change the on time/off-time to 1500 ms/500 ms, recompile,
upload and run.
Call your TA to participate in your excitement . . .
(who may spoil the fun somewhat by asking you about the function
calls used and the structure of the program).
Have your lab book signed for completion of Experiment 4A-1.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Expt. 4A-2 – Pulse Width Modulation: Fade
Objective: Use of Pulse width modulation (PWM) to control power
given to an external device.
This experiment requires making a small circuit on your breadboard.

Connect a wire from Digital pin D-9 on

UNO or D9 470
your UNO/Nano board to the breadboard.
Nano
Arduino Connect a resistor (any value between
LED
Board 220Ω to 470Ω will do) from this point to
the anode of an LED (its longer lead).

The on-board LED is

Return the cathode of the LED (its shorter
connected to pin 13, lead) to a long line of the breadboard for
which does not support the ground connection.
Pulse Width Modulation. Connect a (black) wire from this long line
Hence the need for this to the GND terminal of Arduino (in the
circuit.
group of pins labelled as “power”).

Done!
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 Expt. 4A-2 – Pulse Width Modulation: Fade
This is how I wired up all parts of expt. 4 on a breadboard, using a Nano
board.

(Beware – due to parallax, wires may appear to go to the wrong pins on

Arduino – follow the text, not what you perceive from the figure.)
Wire colours: Red: 5V, Black: Ground,
Green: Digital, Yellow: PWM, Blue: Analog
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 Expt. 4 with an Uno board
The photograph shows all parts of expt. 4 wired up using an Uno board.

(Beware – due to parallax, wires may appear to go to the wrong pins on

Arduino – follow the text, not what you perceive from the figure.)
Wire colours: Red: 5V, Black: Ground,
Green: Digital, Yellow: PWM, Blue: Analog
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 Expt. 4A-2 – Pulse Width Modulation: Fade

Click on the File tab and choose “Examples->01-Basics->Fade.

A fresh edit window will open with the sketch for Fade loaded in it.
Read through the comments to understand what the program is
supposed to do and notice the function calls used.
Click on the “Sketch” tab and choose to verify/compile. The IDE
responds with “Done compiling”.
Click on the “Sketch” tab again and choose to “Upload”. The IDE
responds with “Done uploading”.
Again, you could click on the → icon to combine the compile and
upload operations.
The Fade program starts running.
Watch the LED on the breadboard fade in and out. View the
waveform on pin D9 using the Digital Storage Oscilloscope (DSO).

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Expt. 4A-2 – Pulse Width Modulation: Fade

Modify the sketch to use a different fading increment.

Re-compile, upload and run. Watch the effect of slower and faster
fading on the LED.
Define separate values for increment/decrement amount so that
the rate of fading is not symmetrical during fade in and fade out
phases. (For this, you will have to modify the program code).
For code modification, you will define two values for fade amounts
before the setup( ) function.
int brightness = 0; // how bright the LED is
int fd1 = 5; // how many points to fade the LED by
int fd2 = 20;
int fadeAmount = fd1; // Initial fading rate
(Only the changed part of the program has been described above)

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Expt. 4A-2 – Pulse Width Modulation: Fade
In the loop( ) function, you have to check for two termination conditions:
//change the brightness for next time:
brightness = brightness + fadeAmount;
// reverse the direction of the fading
// when you reach max brightness
if (brightness > 255) {
brightness = 255-fd2;
fadeAmount = -fd2;
}

if (brightness < 0) {
brightness = fd1;
fadeAmount = fd1;
}
// wait for 50 milliseconds per brightness change
delay(50);
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 Expt. 4A-2 – Pulse Width Modulation: Fade

After modifying the code,

Re-compile, re-upload, re-run, and rejoice.
View the waveform on pin 9 using the DSO.
Draw this in your note book. (Use waveforms with dotted/dashed
lines to show how the pulse width is changing).
Call the RA/TA to show your program running with asymmetrical
fading rate and get the completion of Experiment 4A-2 signed.

Do not dismantle this circuit when you go to the next part!

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Expt. 4A-3 – Digital Input, Serial Output

We need to make another simple circuit for this experiment.

Digital pin 2 will be used as the digital input. The
5V circuit shows a switch, but we can simulate the
switch by just touching a wire manually.
UNO or Pin 2
Nano Connect the ground pin (among the power pins of
Arduino
Board 10K Arduino) to the long ground line of your breadboard.
Plug in a 10KΩ resistor between ground and any
group of shorted 5 pins.
(Any value between 10KΩ and 100KΩ will do)
Connect a wire from digital pin 2 to the top of this resistor. Connect a
wire from the 5V output in the group of pins marked “power” on
Arduino.
We’ll touch the other end of this wire by hand to the top of the resistor
to simulate a switch.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Expt. 4A-3 – Digital Input, Serial Output

Click on the File tab and choose

“Examples->01-Basics->DigitalReadSerial.
A fresh edit window will open with the sketch for DigitalReadSerial
loaded in it.
Read through the comments to understand what the program is
supposed to do and notice the function calls used. Pay particular
attention to the way the serial link will be established between the
laptop and Arduino.
Click on the “Sketch” tab and choose to verify/compile. The IDE
responds with “Done compiling”.
Click on the “Sketch” tab again and choose to “Upload”. The IDE
responds with “Done uploading”.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Expt. 4A-3 – Digital Input, Serial Output

To see the measured values, open the serial monitor.

For this, click on the Tools tab and then on the Serial Monitor
choice. This will open a window below the edit window to show
serial communication between the Laptop and Arduino.
Watch the string of ‘0’s appearing in the serial monitor. This is
because Arduino is reading a Low voltage on pin 2 through the
grounded 10KΩ resistor.
Press the push button (or touch the wire you had connected from
the 5V output pin on Arduino to the top of 10KΩ resistor). You will
see a series of ‘1’s now in the serial monitor window.
On the top right of IDE window are two icons.
These can be used to invoke the digital monitor and digital plotter
provided by the IDE.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Expt. 4A-3 – Digital Input, Serial Output

Press and release the push button (or touch and remove the 5V
wire from the top of the 10KΩ resistor) and check that the digital
value read on pin 2 changes from ‘0’ to ‘1’ and back.
Call your TA and claim that you have learnt:
1 how to read digital input,
2 how to send data through the serial line, and
3 how to plot incoming data from Arduino on the laptop.

(The TA may be tempted to test whether you have actually learnt it)!

Get your lab book signed for completion of Experiment 4A-3.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Expt. 4A-4 – Analog Input, Serial Output

Another experiment . . . another circuit.

You are now veterans of making circuits on the bread board.
So just make the circuit shown below without detailed instructions.

Do not forget to connect the 5V and Ground

13 5V
12 Arduino
lines to the 5V and ground pins in the “power”
Potentiometer

11 UNO/nano
10 board group of pins on the Arduino board.
10 K

9 A0
8
7
A1
A2 The breadboard compatible potentiometer
470

6 A3
5 A4 covers the nearby pins – so make a note of
LED

4 A5
3
Tx
Gnd the label on the group of 5 pins on the
Rx
breadboard to which each of its terminals is
connected.
The LED connected to pin D9 through a (≈ 470)Ω resistor should still
be there. (If you removed these by mistake, connect these again as
shown).

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Expt. 4A-4 – Analog Input, Serial Output

Click on the File tab and choose

“Examples->03.Analog->AnalogInOutSerial.
A fresh edit window will open with the sketch for
AnalogInOutSerial loaded in it.
Read through the comments to understand what the program is
supposed to do and notice the function calls used.
Pay particular attention to the way the range of 10bit ADC on AVR
328P is mapped to a range of 8bits (0 to 255), and how a serial
link is established between the laptop and Arduino.
Click on the “Sketch” tab and choose to verify/compile. The IDE
responds with “Done compiling”. (Short cut: control-R).
Click on the “Sketch” tab again and choose to “Upload”. (Short
cut: control-U). The IDE responds with “Done uploading”.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Expt. 4A-4 – Analog Input, Serial Output

Open the serial monitor. For this, click on the Tools tab and then
on the Serial Monitor choice. (You can also click on the icon at the
top right of the IDE). This will open a window below the edit
window to show serial communication between the Laptop and
Arduino.
Adjust the position of the potentiometer by rotating the slider using
a small screw driver. Watch the intensity of the LED being
controlled by the position of the potentiometer.
Also see the sensor output values (ADC outputs with a 10 bit
range and the mapped values to 8 bit ranges) being sent through
the serial port. These appear in the serial monitor. You can also
use the plotter function to see how these change when you turn
the potentiometer slider.
Show the operation to your TA and explain how it all works. Get your
notebook signed for observations of experiment 4A-4.
(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)
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 Motor Speed Control with PWM using an Arduino
Board
In this part of the experiment, we’ll learn how to control the speed of a
motor using an Arduino board.
We need a motor driver card and battery operated (BO) motors for this
part.
First, we have to assemble the set up. The various steps for this are:
Soldering a capacitor and wires to the Battery Operated (BO)
motor.
Mounting the motor on a stage and fixing an encoder disk on its
axis.
Mounting a reflective sensor with an LED and photo-diode which
gives digital outputs of ‘1’/‘0’ as the encoder disk rotates.
Connecting the motor to its driver and connecting the driver to
Arduino Nano card.
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 Soldering a Capacitor across BO Motor Terminals

Before we connect the motor to our

circuits, we need to solder a 0.1µF
ceramic capacitor across its terminals
to suppress noise.
We also need to solder wires to the
motor terminals, so that we can
connect it to the motor driver.

Solder the capacitor and wires to a BO motor.

Seek help from your TA/EE staff if you are unable to solder these
neatly.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Mounting the motor on a platform
You are given a platform with the motor driver mounted on it and a
bracket to mount the BO motor.

Platform with mounted motor driver BO motor mounted on the platform

and bracket
Mount the BO motor on the bracket using nuts and bolts provided
to you, as shown in the figure above.
If your motor has a single shaft, it should be pointing outwards.
Wires soldered to the motor will be connected to the motor driver
board.
(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)
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 Configuring the Motor Driver Board
We shall use the motor driver L298. This board can drive two BO
motors, but we are going to use only one motor in this experiment.

The board has 3 “links”. (A link is a little

plastic part with metal inside, used to
connect two pins to each other). Locate the
three links:
1 Link L1 is located just to the right of the
power block on the bottom, between
the power block and In1 connection.
2 Link L2 is at the bottom right just above
the PWM2 pin.
3 Link L3 is at left, just above the power
block and to the right of OUT2 motor
connection.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Using Links to configure the motor driver

While removing a link, if you just

take it off, you are likely to lose it.
To remove a link, pull it out and
plug it back such that it covers only
one of the two pins over which it
was originally placed.
(See link L1 which has been moved up
by one position.
This exposes the pin previously
shorted by the link and now has an
orange wire labelled PWM1 connected
to it.)

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Breadboard for connecting Arduino Nano
We shall use an Arduino Nano board for controlling the motor.
The Nano card
will be plugged
into a
breadboard,
which will be
placed on the
platform as
shown in the
figure.
The breadboard
can be stuck to
the platform
using a double
sided sticking
tape.
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 Connecting Motor and Power to the Driver Board

The motor leads (soldered

earlier) should be connected
to Motor 1 terminals (OUT1
and OUT2) on the L298 motor
driver board.
Connect a DC power supply
(programmed to 12 V) to the
VS and Ground terminal
blocks on the L298 card. The
third terminal (meant for 5 V
DC) should be left open.
Connect the ground terminal
of L298 card to the ground pin
of Arduino.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Connections between Motor Driver and Arduino

Remove Link L1. (The link

connects the enable input for
motor A to 5 V generated by
on-board 5 V regulator).
The pin (which was connected
to on-board 5 V through the
link earlier) should now be
connected to pin 6 of Arduino
for PWM control.
Connect the next two pins (IN1
and IN2) on the motor driver to
pins 10 and 11 of Arduino.
(Yellow and Green wires in the
picture).
Female to male hook up wires should be used for these connections.
(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)
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 Connection Check List

Links: L3 in; L1 removed.

Power: Motor card to Arduino

Driver card Power supply Driver Card Arduino UNO/nano
VS (10-12 V) Supply+ Ground Gnd
Ground Supply− Enable A Pin 6
5 V Terminal Open IN1 Pin 10
IN2 Pin 11
Motor to Driver card
OUT1, OUT2 - Motor wires

After making all the connections, have these checked by your TA.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Sketch for Rotating the Motor

We are all set to rotate the motor.

We shall use the provided sketch (sketch-expt4B-1.ino) to do this. The
sketch defines a PWM value in the code (at the end of the sketch) and
runs the motor with this PWM value.

If the defined PWM value is negative, it rotates the motor in the

opposite direction.
Connect your Arduino to the laptop without powering on the
motor driver.
(Keithley Power supply output should be OFF).
Enter, compile and upload the provided sketch
(sketch-expt4B.ino).

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Rotating the Motor

We’ll use 12 V power from the Keithley power supply (Channel 1 or 2).
Set the voltage on the selected channel to 12 V.
Program Iset to 1A on this channel and turn ON the output.
The power LED on motor driver should glow.
If it does not, turn everything off and re-check your connections.

If all is well, your motor will rotate!

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Effect of PWM Value on Motor Speed

When you have stopped jumping for joy, call the TA and show your
success to him/her. Have your lab book signed that your motor
connections are right and the motor is rotating.
Try various positive and negative values of PWM.
(Absolute value of PWM has to be ≤ 255).
For this you will have to edit the sketch, altering the value of pwmValue
near the end of the sketch every time, and re-uploading the binary to
Arduino.

After that, Disconnect the power from the motor driver –

We have more work to do . . .

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Measuring Rotation Speed
Sectored Disk
Mount the encoder disk with
black and white sectors on
your motor
Motor
We shall use an infrared
LED LED/photo-transistor pair
Photo (TCRT sensor) to detect the
Transistor
rotation of this disk.
5V
The circuit for the TCRT
330 22 k sensor is shown on the left.
This circuit is given to you as a
TCRT
pre-soldered PC board.
You only have to connect the
Blue Black
power and ground pins from
the PC board to your circuit.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Measuring Rotation Speed
5V

330 22 k Connect the power and ground

terminals of the TCRT sensor circuit
TCRT board to 5V and Gnd terminals of
Arduino Nano.
Blue Black
Run the sketch sketch-expt4B-1.ino
and Power the motor on as before
so that the encoder disk rotates.
Place the TCRT sensor next to the
slots on the rotating encoder disk.
Observe the waveform at the TCRT
output on the oscilloscope.
Draw the waveform in your record
book.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Measuring Rotation Speed

Due to light beam reflection by rotating sectors on the encoder

disk, you will see a (nearly) square waveform on the oscilloscope.
The time period of this waveform is the time taken for one slot to
move into the location of the previous slot.
Since there are 8 white sectors on the disk, the time for one full
rotation is 8 times the time period of the waveform.
The reciprocal of this is the speed in revolutions per second.
Speed is often specified in revolutions per minute (RPM). That is
just 60 times the revolutions per second that we had computed.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

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 Rotation Speed vs PWM Plot

Modify the PWM value in the given sketch (sketch-expt4B-1.ino)

from 32 to 224 in steps of 32.
Notice that at low PWM values, the motor may not rotate at all.
This is normal.
Compute Rotation Speed for each value of PWM. Enter these
values in your note book as a table and have these signed by your
TA.
Plot Rotation Speed vs the applied PWM.

After this, enter, compile and upload the second sketch given to you.
(sketch-expt4B-2.ino).
See the motor accelerate in one direction, decelerate, then accelerate
in the other direction and decelerate to idle condition.
See how this is accomplished in the code in the given sketch.

(Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay)

MS101 Makerspace Expt. 4: Arduino Familiarization and Motor
February
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