I originally was going to use Arduino or Raspberry Pi, but due to various reason, I hope to be able to control the stepper motor using a mini Windows 10 PC instead. Is this possible to send signals to the controller using a PC with USB?
Why not get an Arduino and program it to receive messages from the PC and send step and direction instructions to the stepper driver. Indeed there is an Arduino program called GRBL that is specially made to do that - and it's free.
Stepper Motor Driver Pc Linux Os
Using a 16MHz Arduino to control a stepper motor as well as recording audio would be probably be a step too far. Indeed, even without the stepper motor it could probably only deal with low quality audio. Use the PC to do the audio stuff.
Visit some CNc forums.Silly as it sounds you are asking a group of Arduino guys how to not use an ArduinoBetter to ask the guys who use PCs for CNC on how to use a PC for that.I have a few PCs with parallel ports just for that.As a note you can control 4 MOSFETS from a parallel port to drive a stepper in full step mode without anything special using High watt resistors. And no special driver. Deffinatly not recomended.
Writing your own Arduino code will give you the most flexibility. And it is quite impractical to consider a PC controlling a stepper motor on an Arduino by sending individual step pulses to the Arduino - it would not be possible to control the timing with sufficient accuracy due to latency in the PC operating system and in the USB system. The PC needs to send a higher level message to the Arduino - for example telling it to move 100 steps in the X direction and 247 in the Y direction. Then the Arduino can implement the details to make that happen.
Robin2:Writing your own Arduino code will give you the most flexibility. And it is quite impractical to consider a PC controlling a stepper motor on an Arduino by sending individual step pulses to the Arduino - it would not be possible to control the timing with sufficient accuracy due to latency in the PC operating system and in the USB system. The PC needs to send a higher level message to the Arduino - for example telling it to move 100 steps in the X direction and 247 in the Y direction. Then the Arduino can implement the details to make that happen.
I read your example and that's what I'm thinking about using. In my Arduino sketch, I'd wait for a serial signal from Python (PC), such as "a", and upon receiving this, the Arduino sketch will turn the stepper a certain number of steps. And if I use a driver like the A4988, this is just a matter of writing a for-loop and turning on the STEP pin high and low.
A DC stepper motor translates current pulses into motor rotation. Atypical unipolar (single voltage) motor contains four winding coils.Applying voltage to these coils forces the motor to advance one step. Innormal operation, two winding coils are activated at the same time, causingthe motor to move one step clockwise. If the sequence is applied inreverse order, the motor will run counterclockwise. The speed of rotationis controlled by the frequency of the pulses.
During normal operation, the output pattern from the PC drivesthe buffer, and corresponding transistors are switched on. Thisleads to the conduction of current through those coils of thestepper motor which are connected to the energized transistor.This makes the motor move forward one step. The next pulse willtrigger a new combination of transistors, and hence a new set ofcoils, leading to the motor moving another step. The scheme ofexcitation that we have used here has already been shown above.
You can use either the parallel port or the serial port for thispurpose. We will be using parallel port as a digital interfacebetween PC and the hardware (stepper motor drive). The parallel portcan be considered as a register, and the I/O operations can be donesimply by writing bit patterns (numbers like 0xA, 10, '1010', etc.)to this register. The base address of parallel port is 0x378. The PCparallel port is a 25 pin D-shaped female connector in the back ofthe computer. It is normally used for connecting computer toprinter, but many other types of hardware for that port areavailable.
Modules are pieces of code that can be loaded into and unloaded from arunning kernel upon demand. They extend the functionality of the kernelwithout the need to reboot the system. Device drivers are a class ofmodules which allows the kernel to control hardware connected to the system.In this article, I have written a simple device driver to control a steppermotor drive; now it is time to log on to your console and start coding yourvery first module.
If you write 'F' once to "/dev/stepper", the motor will rotatethrough its minimum step-angle. If you keep on writing 'F' to"/dev/stepper", it will rotate continuously. The "write" systemcall will do this for you.
I hope I have given you some basics of device driver coding and perhapsa "small step toward Robotics". Here is a detailed schematic of astepper-controlled roboticarm; feel free to tryit out. One can connect three stepper motors simultaneously to the PCparallel port and can achieve step-wise mobility; this allows anyone tostart thinking of complex innovative mobility with multi-threadedprogramming in Linux. You can also add C functions to our module to enhanceits functionality... the possibilities are endless!
MACH3 Interface Board CNC 5 Axis with Optocoupler latest upgrade 5 axis breakout board is specially designed for the CNC stepper/servo driver controller, such as TB6560, M542, M542H, MA860H, 2M542, 2M982, DM542(A), DM860(A) and other STEP/DIR input drivers. With this 5 axis breakout board you can drive any 1-5 axis machine used with stepper/servo driver controllers, it can be directly controlled by the PC via the MACH3, EMC2, KCAM4, and others by using DB25 port output.
The Enhanced Machine Controller (LinuxCNC) is a lot more than just anotherCNC mill program. It can control machine tools, robots, orother automated devices. It can control servo motors, stepper motors,relays, and other devices related to machine tools.
The above figure shows a simple block diagram showingwhat a typical 3-axis LinuxCNC system might look like. This diagram shows astepper motor system. The PC, running Linux as its operatingsystem, is actually controlling the stepper motor drives by sendingsignals through the printer port. These signals (pulses) make thestepper drives move the stepper motors. The LinuxCNC system can also run servomotors via servo interface cards or by using an extended parallel portto connect with external control boards. As we examine each of thecomponents that make up an LinuxCNC system we will remind the reader ofthis typical machine.
MP3700-DTHC5 Ultra Fast Digital Torch Height Control ETHER-CUT systemComplete front end I/O comes with external cards for tying in Inputs and connecting Table I/O INPUT interface located on rear for up to 15 isolated inputs. Option for dual Aux Relay mounted in rear panel for control of two AC outputs (Mist and Flood or other loads) to individual motor drivers that take Step & Dir logic signals (5V) or the Gecko G540 Via a single ribbon cable (not included) Includes LINUX PC and CommandCNC softwareOptions marked with * must have a selection made or order will not continue.
The Tic T825 USB Multi-Interface Stepper Motor Controller makes basic control of a stepper motor easy, with quick configuration over USB using our free software. The controller supports six control interfaces: USB, TTL serial, IC, analog voltage (potentiometer), quadrature encoder, and hobby radio control (RC). This version incorporates a TI DRV8825 driver and ships with soldered header pins and terminal blocks. It can operate from 8.5 V to 45 V and can deliver up to approximately 1.5 A per phase without a heat sink or forced air flow.
The Tic family of stepper motor controllers makes it easy to add basic control of a bipolar stepper motor to a variety of projects. These versatile, general-purpose modules support six different control interfaces: USB for direct connection to a computer, TTL serial and IC for use with a microcontroller, RC hobby servo pulses for use in an RC system, analog voltages for use with a potentiometer or analog joystick, and quadrature encoder for use with a rotary encoder dial. They also offer many settings that can be configured using our free configuration utility (for Windows, Linux, and macOS). This software simplifies initial setup of the device and allows for in-system testing and monitoring of the controller via USB (a micro-B USB cable is required to connect the Tic to a computer).
In this case I'm controlling a stepper motor and a generic 2 line by 16 character Hitachi HD44780 LCD display. The display can be connected directly or in my case through a serial interface I designed. This was also used on Arduino and Raspberry Pi with almost similar code.
Fig. 7 illustrates a CNC machine parallel port control board. This is designed to connect to stepper motor controllers, switches, etc. It also includes a relay for powering the spindle motor or laser.
I mentioned earlier that much of what we put in our own control box was based on what we found in our mill. These stepper drivers were the same model MA860H as the mill had, so with visions of mill repair bills in our heads we started swapping our suspect parts into the mill. The stepper motors went first and to our great relief they both worked perfectly. The stepper drivers went next, and neither would function. The eye of Sauron continued to taunt us. Suspecting this might have been our fault we ordered a new pair of the same model. Both of these were dead on arrival as well. One would not function in the mill at all and the other would turn but only in one direction. Clearly these drivers were not a reliable solution.
All the pieces were in place. We could control the steppers with UI buttons or G-code instructions, and with a rudimentary attachment of the motors to the leadscrews we could move the carriage along both axes. 2ff7e9595c