Driving a Motor with Arduino

Last Thursday Jakob & I broke out the Arduino to see if we could drive a motor with it. The issue - we're running a high torque motor that draws around 40mA, and the Arduino can only handle 20mA. It's also a Duemilanove model, so the maximum power output is 5V--not enough for the motor if we wanted it to move with any speed, it was enough h0wever, to drive the gate of a MOSFET and separate the control board and motor circuit. Got some tips from my friend Matt, a mechtraonics TA, and borrowed a MOSFET and pull-down resistor to do the job. Initially used a 9V battery to drive the motor and turned it ON and OFF with a button switch (later to be replaced by the EEG input).

I used two digital pins, one as an output to drive the gate and another as an input from the button switch. Here is a photo of the setup, and it worked!
Only a few more things before we get mind control going...