Specs: Arduino motor shields

It's all fine and dandy that we have some linear actuators in our possession, but moving them is another issue. We need to control the speed at which they move outward, along with some sort of initialization logic. The actuators need to all start with the grip ends at the needed locations, followed by being retracted, causing the tension that we are looking for.

In order to control the movement, we are using an Arduino Uno with a motor shield. The particular motor shield that we are hoping to use is the Robot Power MultiMoto. It appears to be perfect for our needs. 

Figure 1 - Robot Power MultiMoto

Some specs of the MultiMoto (seen in Figure 1):

• 6.0V-36V battery voltage
• Four independently controlled channels
• 6.5A continuous current on each channel (8A max)
• Nearly blow proof

Wow, great! Our actuators have a limit of 6.5A as well. We need to give 12V to each actuator, so that's covered here too. 

But sometimes things are too good to be true.. We tried it out and something went wrong. I wasn't actually there for this, but the four actuators were all moving ok, one of the wires came out (or something like that), and it was powered down. Somehow the Arduino was fried. The MultiMoto doesn't seem to be functioning either. So we are in process of replacing the MultiMoto.

In the meantime, I am trying to find something a bit cheaper to buy so I can at least power two of the actuators. If I can get the machine working in one axis, it would be easy enough to replicate in a second axis.

The requirements for my personal motor shield purchase are:

• Able to handle 12V
• Power two motors
• Able to handle at least 3A per channel

Figure 2 - Arduino Motor Shield R3

I found these handy dandy instructions to help set up an Arduino Motor Shield R3 (as seen in Figure 2) (http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-Motor-Shield-Tutorial/?ALLSTEPS). 

It appears that this shield is really only able to handle 2A per channel (for two motors), or 4A for a single channel. Hmmm. Will that be enough? I guess if anything, I can control on actuator. It will set me back about $25 (amazon link).

Figure 3 - Pololu Motor Driver shield

But I shouldn't settle for less than what I need. Figure 3 shows another shield I found. It's the Pololu MC33926 dual motor driver shield for Arduino. Again, it'll set me back $36. But it seems to have the specs that I'm looking for as a short term replacement. 5V-28V operating voltage. 3A continuous output current per motor (5A peak). It would just require a little bit of soldering, which I'm sure I could do. Pololu motor shield manual

I feel like I should spend an extra $11 to be able to power two actuators sufficiently instead of just one. If this ends up working well and the replacement MultiMoto still proves problematic, we could incorporate two of the Pololu's.

You may have noticed I've posted links to Amazon Prime sources. This is because I have Prime for a month and I'm trying to take advantage of it! If I can get these parts in a day, it would really help me have some more time for finishing it up too. I don't really want to deal with long shipping times. I have work to do.