PEter, can you give us some feedback using it ? Some pictures of your boards ?
BR
Daniel
Sorry I didn't get back to you Daniel. Just to let you know that I am getting new pcbs done which are in the compact "Puppy module" format of 0.78" x 1.8" with a two 8x2 pin headers. I have two versions, one using dual MOSFETs in SOIC-8 equivalent packages and another with the 25NF10 DPAK MOSFETs. Because there is not enough room for all the DPAK devices I have stacked another pcb on top of the module while keeping the pinout the same for the L6470 module, the L6480 medium power module, and the L6480 high power module. Once I have these made up I will post some photos.
Guys, I can't believe what I'm hearing. You mean that you have to have a physical direction pin that can be set high or low which would be from a micro obviously yet the same micro can't bang a couple more bits into that same pin to set coil current among may other parameters which would normally require dozens of I/O pins? As for "may as well get the micro to do the work" it is an easy statement to make but is the micro up to the task in real-time and are you prepared to write all the motion control software to accomplish that? This family of stepper chips are very versatile and I have run them in dumb step clock mode as well as relied on them for full motion control and software can treat the direction pin just like an I/O if it wants to as the SPI driver just belts those control bits out, an operation that is transparent to the application.
I myself with my long experience could be forgiven for wanting things "traditional" yet I welcome a sensible and practical way of handling things. So the problem is not with the chip then, it lies elsewhere....
I get where the desire for STEP/DIR comes from. A lot of stepper applications assume this is the only thing available and do have all the motion-control at the higher level. They just need the amps for big steppers and for it to go where it's told one step at a time. However I agree that... having tried to write my own drivers that include acceleration, deceleration, micro-stepping, etc I welcome a chip that will handle all that and let me send a few serial bytes to say where to go and how fast to get there. I just wish they would make these in I2C versions. I'm usually running out of SPI CS lines long before I'm low on B/W in I2C.
I get where the desire for STEP/DIR comes from. A lot of stepper applications assume this is the only thing available and do have all the motion-control at the higher level. They just need the amps for big steppers and for it to go where it's told one step at a time. However I agree that... having tried to write my own drivers that include acceleration, deceleration, micro-stepping, etc I welcome a chip that will handle all that and let me send a few serial bytes to say where to go and how fast to get there. I just wish they would make these in I2C versions. I'm usually running out of SPI CS lines long before I'm low on B/W in I2C.
As far as handling the motion profiling, etc., HERE you have the option of multi-drop serial.
Comments
it looks like motion control for an x y table is in my future, and it will require some oompf.
Look at one of my earlier posts on the L6470 for more details about the format.
Has anyone done anything with the stter chip?
Thanks
I get where the desire for STEP/DIR comes from. A lot of stepper applications assume this is the only thing available and do have all the motion-control at the higher level. They just need the amps for big steppers and for it to go where it's told one step at a time. However I agree that... having tried to write my own drivers that include acceleration, deceleration, micro-stepping, etc I welcome a chip that will handle all that and let me send a few serial bytes to say where to go and how fast to get there. I just wish they would make these in I2C versions. I'm usually running out of SPI CS lines long before I'm low on B/W in I2C.
As far as handling the motion profiling, etc., HERE you have the option of multi-drop serial.