Arduino Shields

I am going to use the arduino uno as my controller, however I am not sure which shield to use with the board. RacingMat's 2 DOF DIY simulator tutorial suggested the Monster Moto. My simulator is first going to be 2 DOF with plans to add a third DOF later. I am going to use 12V truck wiper motors. Thanks for your advice and input, it is greatly appreciated.

You've got two basic options as far as motor drivers(controllers) go. Those with built in feedback and PID, such as the Pololu JRK, and those without, like the Monster Moto or a Pololu 18v15.

They great thing about the JRK is the feedback/control is built in, so you can tune the PID settings with a nice provided GUI, and get predictable results. On the JRK, the potentiometer connects to the JRK, and it worries about getting the servo to position.

On simple motor drivers, you have to connect the potentiometer to the Arduino, and include PID code in your sketch that will ultimately drive the motor driver.

For me, I'm going with a non-JRK driver. I'm comfortable with all the code, and I've been playing with scale models using potentiometers, as well as incremental rotary encoders for positional feedback into the software PID, driving an H-bridge (motor driver) with some pretty basic code.

The TL;DR is those with feedback built-in simplify the design and implementation, but at a higher price point. Hope this helps.

@monicamary : this solution is the lowest cost!
you can also use 2x https://www.olimex.com/Products/RobotParts/MotorDrivers/BB-VNH3SP30/ instead of Motomonster

@monicamary I agree with RacingMat if you are going for the Arduino set up. Looking at the total cost of investment you would spend €18,00 for the drives, €25,00 for the Arduino and some loose change for heat sinks on both of them. If you de-solder the capacitors and solder them back on the underside of the printed circuit board (pay attention to the polarity of the capacitor), you would be able to install a heat sink to keep it all well in the cosy range of the chip to improve the durability. Looking at the capacity of the Olimex I can not imagine the truck wiper motors will exceed the limits of the driver.

Thanks

The JRK is easily configurable to set up, no code writing or modifying, changing a pot feedback setting or motor power or PID simple to fix in the utility program.
It costs more, but the simplicity far outweighs my over spend on it.
Good for no idea people like me.

There are more than 20 different cards compatible with the arduino including the 1 posted by racingmat. Best method is to learn how to compare the features of these cards. In order for the system to work, the card you choose should match the ratings of the motor and the power supply. If you tell me the rated current of your motor and the max amps of your power supply I can suggest a few.

and you wonder why I havent gotten around to learning the use an arduino.......