Raspberry Pi A, User Manual, Page: 275 / 314

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Figure 16-8:
The Gertboard
connected to a
Raspberry Pi
The motor controller functionality of the Gertboard makes it easy to integrate the Pi into a
robotics project. It’s suitable for motors of up to 48 V at 4 A, which is easily powerful enough
to drive a small robot vehicle. Sadly, the motor is not included as standard with the Gertboard.
Instead, you are asked to supply your own controller—with the L6203 package being recom-
mended—if motor control forms part of your project. With the motor controller soldered
into place, the Gertboard can be used to control surprisingly powerful motors either through
instructions received from the Pi itself or from the optional Atmel microcontroller module.
Figure 16-9 shows an example circuit that’s using the Gertboard to drive a 12 V motor from
a battery pack power supply.
For project building, the Gertboard offers significantly more functionality than a bare
Raspberry Pi. The 12 buffered IO ports, located at the top of the board, can be configured as
inputs or outputs and provide more connectivity than the seven or eight general-purpose IO
pins provided on the Pi’s own GPIO port. The inclusion of LEDs, which indicate when a pin is
high or low, helps with both circuit troubleshooting and electronics education, making it
easy to see what the various inputs and outputs are doing at any given time.