DRV8830 - What is INT pin for?

I recently purchased the DRV8830 break out. The break out works great.

However, I cannot figure out what the INT pin does. The main DRV8830 webpage does not seem to mention this pin.

Hopefully someone can show me where I can find what this pin does?

Thanks!

Is there a way to get an answer to this question?

I think INT pins tend to be interrupt pins from other breakout board documentation I’ve seen.

The datasheet doesn’t open on my phone, I’ve not had chance to try a computer. I found one on Google searching DRV8830 but it doesn’t mention an interrupt.
Unfortunately that breakout on Pimoroni doesn’t come with a schematic so I can’t see what the pin is connected to.

Maybe you can work it out then the datasheet might give some clues.

Otherwise I’d probably suggest trying Pimoroni support.

I’m far from expert, but: The pins on the Pimoroni Breakout Garden are labelled similarly to other I2C devices (Vin, SCL, SDA, GND), and I’ve seen that some of those devices can generate interrupts, I’m assuming on the INT pin. It does not appear to be used often, and isn’t usually needed for I2C communications.

I’m quite new in the Raspberry world, doing a lot of reading. My Pimoroni Trilobot has several sets of 5 solder pads labelled the same, which I’m planning to use with Grove and STEMMA QT boards that use 3- & 4-pin JST PH connectors. The 4-pin devices I’ve seen have all but the INT pin. I mention all this because, though I may still be ignorant/wrong/mistaken, all these products appear to be interconnectable if you get the wires right. And I2C can be chained, for multiple devices.

If I understand the Pimoroni ecosystem correctly, your DRV8830/PIM479 could plug into the Breakout Garden connectors, see Pimoroni PIM416, and note that those are intended to connect to the rest of the world.

So basically, I’m saying “ignore the INT pin” and just wire for I2C, and the rest is to assist you in Google searches for Grove, Adafruit and other devices for you to better understand what you’re doing, what’s possible, and what I think I’ve learned.

The DRV8830 is an interesting little board, I’ll have to consider that for future builds. Thanks!

I follow what you are sawing CosmicFurFace and Kihonkai.

However, it looks like the chip itself has a Fault output. I would like to use this to trigger a read of the Fault register. I believe that this is how the Fault output is intended to be used. As you mention, the INT pin is probably this pin on the chip.

All I want to get from the supplier of this board is a confirmation of what pin on the chip is wired to the INT pin. It seems that the company that build it should be able to provide this. This is my first time buying a component from this company, and not having detailed documentation on the board is a bit annoying.

I know what you mean @swimleft, though I’m still glad for a company like this. Unfortunately I guess they have to keep making new boards to keep up with competition and make a profit.

Good documentation takes time, but I don’t think explaining the pin out and even giving a schematic on smaller boards like this would be too bad though. Surely they would need them in some form to develop the boards in the first place.

I’ve not tried going through their support directly with questions, I do see staff on the forum here a bit too. Maybe with more people asking they might put someone on the task of adding some documentation.

If you want to get somebodies attention you can do an @Kihonkai for example.
@hel will ping Hel Gibbons who is Pimoroni staff. You just have to know who to @
They get a notification when you do that.

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Sorry - only just seen this @Kihonkai ! I try and keep a bit of an eye on the forums but you’ll usually get a quicker answer if you go through support - there are more of them than there are of me :)

I’ve requested a schematic for this breakout/more info on what INT does from the folks at engineering - will let you know what I find out!

Schematic is now available on the shop page: DRV8830 DC Motor Driver Breakout - Pimoroni

They’ve also confirmed that INT isn’t used for anything on this breakout (the label went on the silk in error, apparently), so you don’t need to worry about connecting that one up.

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So far, the only Breakout that I have “had” to wire the Int pin up on was the Trackball. I for the most part just ignore it. Just a FYI.

No worries at all on that, there’s also a lot more customers too. It’s nice to have some of the Pimoroni crew around the forum though and I’ll make sure to remember to contact support if it seems right as I work on more projects. Thanks.

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Thank you for getting back to me on this. I am looking at using the error flag pin to know to read for error conditions. I would likely have been banging my head on a wall wondering why I got nothing out of the INT pin.