5:1 6V LP - Micro Metal Gearmotor

Overview

These tiny brushed DC gearmotors are available in a wide range of gear ratios—from 5:1 up to 1000:1—and with five different motors: high-power 6 V and 12 V motors with long-life carbon brushes (HPCB), and high-power (HP), medium power (MP), and low power (LP) 6 V motors with shorter-life precious metal brushes. The 6 V and 12 V HPCB motors offer the same performance at their respective nominal voltages, just with the 12 V motor drawing half the current of the 6 V motor. The 6 V HPCB and 6 V HP motors are identical except for their brushes, which only affect the lifetime of the motor.

The HPCB versions (shown on the left in the picture below) can be differentiated from versions with precious metal brushes (shown on the right) by their copper-colored terminals. Note that the HPCB terminals are 0.5 mm wider than those on the other micro metal gearmotor versions (2 mm vs. 1.5 mm), and they are about 1 mm closer together (6 mm vs. 7 mm).

Gearmotor Dimensions

In terms of size, these gearmotors are very similar to Sanyo’s popular 12 mm NA4S DC gearmotors, and gearmotors with this form factor are occasionally referred to as N20 motors. The versions with carbon brushes (HPCB) have slightly different terminal and end-cap dimensions than the versions with precious metal brushes, but all of the other dimensions are identical.

Note: The gearbox on the 1000:1 and 1000:1 HP micro metal gearmotors is 12.5 mm long. All of the other micro metal gearmotors have 9mm-long gearboxes, as shown in the above dimension diagram.

Motor Accessories

• Wheels and Hubs: The micro metal gearmotor’s output shaft matches our assortment of Pololu wheels and the Solarbotics RW2 rubber wheel. You can also use the Pololu universal mounting hub to mount custom wheels and mechanism to the micro metal gearmotor’s output shaft.

• Mounting Brackets: Our mounting bracket (also available in white) and extended mounting bracket are specifically designed to securely mount the gearmotor while enclosing the exposed gears. We recommend the extended mounting bracket for wheels with recessed hubs, such as the Pololu wheel 42×19mm.

• Quadrature Encoder: We offer a quadrature encoder for this motor that works with our extended bracket and 42×19mm wheel and provides feedback about wheel rotation (direction and speed). The encoder can be purchased as an individual unit or as part of an encoder set that includes two encoders, a pair of extended brackets, and a pair of 42×19mm wheels—just pick the particular micro metal gearmotor that best suits your application and you have a solution for closed-loop motor control.

• Motor Controllers: We have a number of motor controllers that make it easy to drive these micro metal gearmotors, including our qik 2s9v1 dual serial motor controller and our programmable Baby Orangutan and Orangutan SVP robot controllers. The inexpensive qik 2s9v1 allows variable speed and direction control of two small, brushed DC motors using a simple serial interface; the Orangutans combine a programmable Atmel AVR microcontroller and dual motor driver all in a single package and make interfacing with the motor drivers simple when you use our Pololu AVR library. All of the above controllers use the TB6612FNG dual motor driver, for which we also offer a simple carrier board.