Basics of L293D

Hello everyone, I hope you all are doing great. In today's tutorial, I am going to give an overview of L293D, which is used in robotics projects a lot. It's basically an integrated chip with a dual motor controller. So, you can easily control two DC motors with L293D. You can control the direction as well as the speed of these DC motors with L293D.

So, let's have a look at its basic features:

L293D Pinout

I would suggest you to have a look at L293D Pinout and also download its Proteus Simulation, it will really help. L293D has 16 Pins in total which are as follows:

• Pin # 1 is Enable 1 which is used to turn ON or OFF the first H-bridge.
• Pin # 2 is Input1, which is the first Input for Motor1. It should be connected with a Microcontroller.
• Pin # 3 is Output1, which is the first Output for Motor1.
• Pin # 4 & 5 are GND, so they should be connected to 0V or ground.
• Pin # 6 is Output2, which is the second output for Motor1.
• Pin # 7 is Input2, so that makes it the second Input for Motor1.
• Pin # 8 is Vcc so apply voltage here.

These first eight pins of L293D are used to control one DC Motor. There were two inputs and two outputs. Both inputs should be connected with the microcontroller, while the outputs should be connected with your DC motor. Now, let's move onto the next eight pins of L293D:

• Pin # 9 is Enable 2 which is used to turn ON or OFF the second H-bridge.
• Pin # 10 is Input3, which is the first Input for Motor2. It should be connected with a Microcontroller.
• Pin # 11 is Output3, which is the first Output for Motor2.
• Pin # 12 & 13 are GND, so they should be connected to 0V or ground.
• Pin # 14 is Output4, which is the second output for Motor2.
• Pin # 15 is Input4, so that makes it the second Input for Motor2.
• Pin # 16 is Vcc so apply voltage here.

These 8 pins are used to control the second DC Motor. We can also control a Stepper Motor with L293D but only 1 stepper motor can be controlled with a single L293D IC, as we know that a stepper motor has 4 pins to control. Normally L298 is used to control motors with microcontrollers like Arduino Nano, Arduino Pro Mini etc.

So, that was all about the L293D. I hope you have enjoyed today's tutorial. Let me know about your projects with this H bridge IC in the comments below. Will meet you guys in the next tutorial. Till then take care and have fun !!! :)