Stepper Motor Project

[bignath87]

I'm making a project that involves a single axis stepper motor moving about 10-30º in one direction and then back in no more than 30 seconds (i have a 555 timer circuit maxed out at 3 seconds).  I'm not that smart with electronics and i need to find a way to program this stepper motor through the parallel port of a computer.  From what i can see i need to create a circuit that connects the stepper motor up to the parallel port, does anyone know where i can find one of these or help me make one? (preferably without IC chips haha, they're a pain in the ass to put in circuits)

Thanks

[MP]

If it is a small enough stepper, you can run it directly from the parallel port. There are a few different types and how you connect it will depend upon this.
You did not mention what you know about programming, which operating system you will use or which language you prefer to program in, so I will spell out the basics.

A stepper just uses a binary like code which pulses the coils in a sequence. You have the choice here of full step and half step.
The simplest form is to use a 4 wire stepper in full step mode and send:
0000
delay
1000
delay
0000
delay
0100
delay
0000
delay
0010
delay
0000
delay
0001
delay
(All of this is required for one step)
then repeat.
To go in the other direction, reverse the sequence. Notice that the parallel port will continue to send the data until it is cleared. This is the reason to send zeros after each step. One delay sets the "on" time and the other delay sets the "off" time.
The parallel port uses pins 2 through 7 as an 8 bit word to send data out. You can use the basic command "outport" to send a binary number to this port. LPT1 is Hex378. You will have to send the code to this port. A computer will not guess which port you are using.
Start with a delay of "wait 500" and work up or down from there. Running the stepper too fast will actually cause it to skip steps and seem like it is going slower.
After some testing, you can add features in your program which can change the delay timing or the direction on the fly.

Hope this is helpful to get you a start.

MP

[bignath87]

i just found out my teacher is not going to allow me to do my project through the parallel port and i need to design a circuit for the stepper motor.  There was a circuit in one of the booklets he gave out so i'm probably just going to use that, thanks for the help, i might come back for some help later though because this is really confusing for me.