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130 Making Things Move

FIGURE 6-6 Data sheet for DC toy motor, ROB-09608 (image used with
permission from SparkFun Electronics)

The data sheet for this motor is shown in Figure 6-6 (www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/
Robotics/ROB-09608.jpg).
Whoa, that’s a lot of numbers! Let’s step through this to make sense of what the data
sheet is telling us and find the important parts.

• VOLTAGE The first column shows that the operating range is 1.5–4.5V, and
nominal is 4.5V. This means that the motor will spin if you give it anywhere
from 1.5V to 4.5V, but it really likes 4.5V the best. Your standard AA battery is
1.5V, so this motor will work with just one of those, but you could string three
1.5V AA batteries together in series to give the motor the 4.5V it prefers.