The L293D chips can get hot. If you are drawing close to 600mA continuously, consider sticking a small aluminum heatsink onto the ICs. Conclusion
If you’ve bought a cheap "HW-130" motor driver shield from Amazon, eBay, or AliExpress, you probably noticed one thing immediately:
4.5V to 25V DC (connected via the EXT_PWR terminal) Logic Voltage: 5V DC (powered directly from the Arduino) hw 130 motor control shield for arduino datasheet
The board is powered by two motor driver chips and one 74HC595 shift register.
| Arduino Pin | Function | Remarks | | ----------- | ------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- | | | PWM speed control for Motor #2 / Stepper #1 | Used by the AFMotor library | | D5 | PWM speed control for Motor #3 / Stepper #2 | – | | D6 | PWM speed control for Motor #4 / Stepper #2 | – | | D9 | Servo 1 signal line | Hardware PWM – avoids jitter | | D10 | Servo 2 signal line | – | | D11 | PWM speed control for Motor #1 / Stepper #1 | – | | D12 | Direction control for Motor #1 / Stepper #1 | Used in low‑level control when bypassing libraries | | D13 | Direction control for Motor #2 / Stepper #1 | – | The L293D chips can get hot
The HW-130 allows you to control two DC motors or one stepper motor. It uses the L298P driver chip, which is mounted on the shield to handle the high currents that the Arduino cannot handle directly.
The L293D chips have built-in diodes and internal clamp diodes for protection against voltage spikes. | Arduino Pin | Function | Remarks |
⚠️ The specific pin mapping can vary slightly between clones. However, the shield is almost universally compatible with the Adafruit Motor Shield V1 library ( AFMotor.h ), which handles these pin definitions automatically.
Install in Arduino IDE: Sketch -> Include Library -> Add .ZIP Library . Example Code: Controlling a DC Motor
Because the dedicated servo headers are connected to pins D9 and D10 (hardware PWM), you can use the standard Arduino Servo library without any special configuration.
