Blog
Christopher Hawkins made this cool DIY 3d printed stepper motor: [via]
This is a programmable stepper motor and driver that I made out of some nails, magnet wire, neodymium magnets, a digispark microcontroller, and a 3D printed piece that I designed around these things. My goal was to make something about the size of a business card that moved. You can’t exactly fit it in your wallet but it does indeed move. It just a first draft- there’s lots of room for improvement. It has a step angle of 15 degrees (although the way I’m driving it, it is 7.5 degrees.)
3D Printed Stepper Motor - [Link]
An Open Source Hardware Stepper Motor Drive Project:
Bruce Shapiro got me to design and build the UBW (USB Bit Whacker) project to solve his problem of disappearing parallel ports on computers. The UBW design has exceeded all of my expectations. As well as meeting the original design objectives, it has proven itself a great platform for many forms of firmware. But there was still a problem! Bruce traditionally used the UCN5804B stepper motor driver chip for his EggBot classes because it is easily breadboardable and very simple to use. Unfortunately, they are now $17 each and very difficult to find. Bruce wondered if I could design and build a replacement driver that would still be mountable on a breadboard, would still just need two input lines (step and direction) and would drive bi-polar stepper motors. And so now we have the EasyDriver design.
EasyDriver Stepper Motor Driver - [Link]
Big Easy Driver Stepper Motor Driver - [Link]
EasyDriver Quad - [Link]
dangerousprototypes.com writes:
Dino played around with some stepper motors by using them to generate electricity. The output is AC so he used a full-bridge rectifier, sometimes refereed to as the Graetz rectifier, to get a single direction signal, basically the absolute value of the sine wave. Check out the video to see it power LEDs, drive a motor, and charge some batteries.
Using stepper motors as generators - [Link]
www.opend.co.za writes:
A simple circuit designed to drive stepper motors, from low current types, to motors requiring a couple of amps. Both full step and half step modes are supported.
Stepper driver - [Link]
Jamie at the BackyardWorkshop developed this project using a Parallax Propeller Proto board and an Easydriver stepper driver from Sparkfun to build this homemade workshop power drive for a lathe / mill / drill. The project costs around $50 in parts, representing a major cost savings over buying a manufactured unit at $300 – $500. [via]
He writes:
Basically I’ve wired up an Easydriver stepper controller to a Parallax Propeller Proto board and written a little program to drive a stepper at different speeds based on a potentiometer. There’s also a direction switch and a limit switch set up like any good power drive system should have.
DIY workshop power drive using Parallax Propeller – [Link]
ashishrd.blogspot.com writes:
A few months ago, I bought a stepper motor for only Rs.75 (about USD $1.50). I had almost forgotten about that motor until I found it lying in a secluded corner of my bedroom, collecting dust the other day. I searched the internet for information on controlling stepper motors with a computer and I was surprised at how easy it was! My stepper motor has five wires, and it is a unipolar stepper motor with a step angle of 7.5 degrees.
Computer Controlled Stepper Motor – [Link]
dangerousprototypes.com writes: [via]
Here’s a good tutorial from ExtremeElectronics.co.in explaining the types of stepper motors, their uses, and how to interface them with an AVR microcontroller.
It includes the xstepper code library for use with the AVR Atmega16, and demonstrates how to interface the MCU and the motor using a ULN2003A high-voltage high-current Darlington transistor array.
This tutorial is comprehensive and provides beginners with the theory and sample code to get started with a simple stepper motor project.
Stepper motor tutorial – [Link]
carlyn writes:
This project is designed to allow you to create a reusable module for Bi-Polar Stepper applications based on a L293D H-Bridge. An H-bridge is a circuit that allows you to reverse the polarity of a DC circuit. They’re used to control the direction of motors.
Stepper Motor Module – [Link]
pcbheaven.com writes:
The Linistepper is a PIC-powered open source controller and driver for small to medium sized unipolar stepper motors. It offers standard full and half step stepper driving, as well as 6th and 18th microstepping. It provides a single wire rotation direction selection, and can be configured to operate with only a single wire that provides the pulses.
Product Review – Linistepper – [Link]
Avayan offers this great discussion of how to choose the passive components for the popular DRV8811 stepper driver, as well as some good insight into how the chip works. He writes: [via]
The DRV8811 is clearly a bipolar stepper driver that makes our lives considerably easier. It is just so simple to drive a stepper with this powerful device, as well as similar internal indexer microstepping engines, who takes care of all the nuances of phase commutation and current control. Just supply your stepping rate in the form of a square wave with the desired frequency and a direction signal, and WALAS! Your motor moves!
Choosing Components for the DRV8811 Stepper Driver – [Link]
