TB6612FNG H-Bridge Motor Controller – Better than L298N?

Today we are going to work with the TB6612FNG, a MOSFET-based H-Bridge Motor Controller that has many advantages over the popular L298N.

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When you want to control the speed and direction of a DC Motor an H-Bridge is what you need. And when working with low-voltage motors the go-to module has always been the L298N. It’s cheap, easy to use and available from just about everywhere you buy electronic parts.

But the L298N is far from perfect. It drops the motor voltage by 1.4-volts and dissipates all of that lost power as heat, which is why it requires such a large heatsink. And it’s pretty large, mostly due to that big hunk of metal.

The problem with the L298N is that it uses bipolar junction transistors (BJTs). A better way to design an H-Bridge is to use MOSFETs.

Enter the TB6612FNG. This MOSFET-based H-Bridge can replace the L298N in most applications, and it is so efficient that it doesn’t even require a heatsink! It’s a few pennies more than the L298N, but as I’m sure you’ll see, it’s well worth it.

This device is also much smaller than the L298N, it’s available on dedicated motor control modules, on Arduino shields and HATs for the Raspberry Pi. And, perhaps best of all, you can wire it into your L298N circuit and use the same code with it!

Here is what we will be covering today in our look at this H-Bridge motor controller:

Introduction to TB6612FNG – 2:03
Look at TB6612FNG – 4:55
TB6612FNG vs L298N – 6:58
TB6612FNG Arduino Hookup – 9:50
Ugly Robot Car – 25:06

Yes, the last one was an “ugly robot car”. I put the TB6612FNG onto one of those acrylic car bases and gave it a test using a versatile library from Sparkfun. I think you’ll agree, that’s one ugly car – but it does work!

I hope you enjoy the video!

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