Grove PowerDrive - Drive More Current With Grove GPIO outputs
The GrovePowerDrive puts buffers on the GPIO lines to provide high current outputs (up to ~100mA) out the Grove Connector Outputs (Sig1 and Sig2 - see our Grove Tutorial).
You can optionally use the pin headers D0_NEN and D1_NEN to tristate the outputs. They default (with a pulldown resistor to GND) to enabled.
Using GrovePowerDrive to Drive (and shut off) a 5V Fan
We use a small 5V fan on Project Curacao2 to drive new air samples in for the AirQuality Sensor (and no, we aren't sure this will work well. We need to run some experiments) and to provide some air circulation when the box gets too warm. We are using the GrovePowerDrive to provide the necessary current (~50mA) through the GPIO lines. The GrovePowerDrive puts buffers on the GPIO lines to provide high current outputs (up to ~100mA) out the Grove Connector Outputs (Sig1 and Sig2 - see our Grove Tutorial). We wire up the fan + line to Sig1 using a Grove to Male Pin Header Converter and also wire up the ground on the fan to the ground connection on the Grove Connector. The GrovePowerDrive software is similar to the software used for the GrovePowerSave:
import SDL_Pi_GrovePowerDrive import time GPIO_Pin_PowerDrive_Sig1 = 4 GPIO_Pin_PowerDrive_Sig2 = 5 myPowerDrive = SDL_Pi_GrovePowerDrive.SDL_Pi_GrovePowerDrive(GPIO_Pin_PowerDrive_Sig1, GPIO_Pin_PowerDrive_Sig2, True, True) print "turning Pin %i off" % GPIO_Pin_PowerDrive_Sig1 myPowerDrive.turnOffPowerDrive(1) time.sleep(60) myPowerDrive.turnOffPowerDrive(2) print "turning Pin %i off" % GPIO_Pin_PowerDrive_Sig2 time.sleep(60) print "turning Pin %i on" % GPIO_Pin_PowerDrive_Sig1 myPowerDrive.turnOffPowerDrive(1)