Advice please, I need to run 16 stepper motors

Projects Discussion and Showcase Robotics
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I need to run 16 stepper motors and we ideally need stall detection so TMC2130 or 2209 drivers.

With just step, direction and enable for 16 motors we are up to 48 pins straight away, this will be an issue. Are there any libraries out there that common up the step and direction pins and use the enable pin to strobe through the motors? This would reduce the pin count to 18. Better still we could use a 4 to 16 encoder IC for the enable lines and have 16 steppers run of just 6 pins.

Does anyone know of a library that will accommodate large volumes of motors? Thanks.

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maybe you can have a look at this ?

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Often, people just tie enable to ground or 5V (whichever enables the motor). Do you need to disable motors at all?

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You could try using a multiplexer of some sort for your pins or try an Arduino Mega. By the way, just curious, what kind of project needs 16 stepper motors?! Also what kind of stepper motors are you using? Are they standard ones like Nema 17 or small like 28BYJ-48?

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