Article

LEGO® Control Board for the Raspberry Pi

With 4 motor-control outputs and 16 digital I/O channels

Labs Project

Based on a Labs project | February 2016 | Find it here

This Raspberry Pi HAT puts at your disposal 4 motor-control outputs for LEGO EV3 motors and 16 buffered I/O connections that can be used in combination with a powerful Raspberry Pi. Programming is possible in languages such as C and Python. As an application example we show how this board and a few LEGO parts can be used to build a 'useless box'.

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Materials

Project software and additional info

Component list

Component List
Resistors
R1,R2,R3,R4,R9,R10,R11,R12,R18,R19 = 100kOhm 1%, 0.1W, case 0603
R5,R7,R13,R15 = 18kOhm 1%, 0.1W, case 0603
R6,R8,R14,R16 = 33kOhm 1%, 0.1W, case 0603
R17 = 330Ohm, 0.1W, case 0603

Capacitors
C1 = 1000µF, 25V, aluminum, d 12.5mm, h 13.5mm, ELPP-CP-125-135
C2 = 220µF, 16V, aluminum, d 6mm, h 7.7mm, ELPP-CP-063-066
C3,C4,C6,C7,C9,C10,C11,C12,C13,C14,C15 = 100nF 10%, 16V, X7R, case 0603
C5,C8 = 10µF, 63V, case D

Inductors
L1 = 33µH, 2.1A (e.g. Coilcraft DO3316)

Semiconductors
D1 = MBRS540, 40V 5A, ELPP-DO-214AB
LED1 = LED, red, case 1206
T1 = IRF9540NSPBF, P-channel MOSFET, D2-PAK
IC1 = LM2596S-5.0, DC/DC buck converter, TO-263-5
IC2,IC5 = TB6612, motor driver, 24-SSOP (Digikey # TB6612FNGC8ELCT-ND)
IC3,IC4 = MCP23008-E/SO, I/O expander, SOIC-18

Miscellaneous
K1 = DC adapter connector, 12V 3A, 1.95mm center pin
K2,K3,K4,K5 = NXT socket
K6,K7,K8,K9 = 4-way PCB screw terminal block, 3.81mm pitch
K10 = 2-way PCB screw terminal block, 3.81mm pitch
K11 = 40-pin (2x20) GPIO stacking header for RPi, extra tall
PCB # 159010-1