Is a motor driver required for BO Motors?

Question

I have heard that motor drivers are required for DC Geared motors, or they may get damaged but is a motor driver needed for BO Motors?

Can they be directly connected to the GPIO pins of the Raspberry Pi and controlled that way?

I am using a Raspberry Pi B Revision 2.

You need a driver for whatever requires either or both: more than 3.3V or 30-40mA. — user29510, Apr 20, 2016 at 11:49
@Nasha, 30..40 mA would already be way out of spec for a single GPIO pin. Max rating is 16 mA. — Ghanima, Apr 20, 2016 at 17:15
@Ghanima Thanks for the info. I knew the limit was very low and couldn't find the exact figure at once. I found 50mA somewhere else, should've double-checked though. Anyway 16 or 50, it's still not enough to drive a motor directly. — user29510, Apr 21, 2016 at 7:22
@Nasha, no problem, 50 mA is the rated max total sum of all GPIO pins (which is also not much). — Ghanima, Apr 21, 2016 at 8:06

joan · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-20 08:02:59Z

1

A BO motor (as far as I can tell from Google) is a DC motor.

A DC motor requires a motor driver.

You need a motor driver board or you need to create your own motor driver from discrete components.

answered Apr 20, 2016 at 8:02

joan

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Thanks!! I had doubts why a motor driver is used that's why I asked it... :)
– Alok Naushad
Apr 21, 2016 at 6:19

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