BS2 interface to Bipolar stepper motor needed
stro
Posts: 4
Hello everyone- I am new to the forum and this seems like a great place for advice and ideas.
The purpose of this e-mail is to ask for specifics about how any of you (who are willing to share) may have actually interfaced a BS2 to a bipolar stepper motor.
I have searched through the forums already and found several threads about using stepper motors with Parallax products. There are many suggestions and many ideas people have had on how they *would* or *might* do it, but I was wondering if there is anyone out there who has *actually* done it and what their advice might be regarding the various interface boards/chipsets commercially available. Please note that I am not trying to diminish the value of suggestions, but would like to tap some actual experience, if possible, as I do have a budget and do not want to purchase a bunch of $20 boards which might not work.
My application:
A single, two-phase, bipolar stepper motor, 1.7A/phase, 1.6 ohms/phase, holding torque around 60 oz-in, Basic step angle = 1.8 deg.
I have a Basic Stamp 2, Board of Education.
I do not need speed as much as torque and repeatability while using 1/16 microstepping.
I liked the idea of the motor protection features built into the Little Step-U but it appears to only work with unipolar steppers. Please correct me if I am wrong about that.
Many thanks.
Cheers,
stro
The purpose of this e-mail is to ask for specifics about how any of you (who are willing to share) may have actually interfaced a BS2 to a bipolar stepper motor.
I have searched through the forums already and found several threads about using stepper motors with Parallax products. There are many suggestions and many ideas people have had on how they *would* or *might* do it, but I was wondering if there is anyone out there who has *actually* done it and what their advice might be regarding the various interface boards/chipsets commercially available. Please note that I am not trying to diminish the value of suggestions, but would like to tap some actual experience, if possible, as I do have a budget and do not want to purchase a bunch of $20 boards which might not work.
My application:
A single, two-phase, bipolar stepper motor, 1.7A/phase, 1.6 ohms/phase, holding torque around 60 oz-in, Basic step angle = 1.8 deg.
I have a Basic Stamp 2, Board of Education.
I do not need speed as much as torque and repeatability while using 1/16 microstepping.
I liked the idea of the motor protection features built into the Little Step-U but it appears to only work with unipolar steppers. Please correct me if I am wrong about that.
Many thanks.
Cheers,
stro
Comments
The StampWorks manual can be downloaded free in PDF format from the following link and I am also including another link on using the L293D to drive a Bipolar Stepper Motor.
http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/docs/books/sw/Web-SW-v2.1.pdf
http://www.seattlerobotics.org/encoder/may98/steppers.html
On experiment #27 the only difference between the example shown and a Bipolar motor would be the lack of the common (ground) wire shown. If you place the other coils wires in order on the four outputs the code will work the same. I hope this helps.
Many, many thanks for the information. I'll give the L293D a shot and see if I can "get there from here".
Again, thanks for sharing.
-Stro
I just ordered some 297s off ebay too. Dedicated stepper controllers, they can handle anything.