Arduino and 1.4Amp/Phase Stepper Motor

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Interfacing
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I am brand new to the Arduino (I just bought my first!) and looking for a little guidance. I am looking to control a stepper motor whose power requirements exceed what is managable with a standard stepper card (EasyStepper V3 or a shield card). The motor I am looking to control has a 1.4Amp/Phase requirement. I was planning to purchase a microstep driver and use the arduino to provide hi/low for direction and the pulses for the step clock.

I will be using a Xport Direct+ and sending commands to the arduino from a computer on the network. I intend to program the arduino to translate the commands received over the Xport into a series of pulses sent out to the stepper driver to produce the approriate number of steps.

Does this sound like a reasonable process? I'm not too concerned about the nitty-gritty of the coding yet, I just want to make sure that the overall method seems like to could work.

Thanks

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Any suggestions? Does this seem reasonable?

3

As long as the microstep driver can handle the current pr. phase you require it sounds like its possible.

I don't know the microstep thingie, but if it has inputs that can be controlled from Arduino ( like 0 V / 5 V for high / low) you should be OK

4

I am confident that the driver is capable of handling the motor. I am more concerned to confirm that the arduino is able to produce the pulses (hi/lows) for the driver.

5

Are you sure something like the easydriver won't work? The reason I say this is that the amperage required is the amp required at a specific voltage. With a chopping driver, like the easydriver, it runs it at a much higher voltage, measuring the feedback from the motor - and drives it as high as it will go w/o damaging the motor before quickly turning it off.

If you run it at least 2x the rated voltage, then you should have no problem - you'll be able to take advantage of the chopping driver in the ED.

I have some 6V ~1A (not sure of exact rating) steppers that run very poorly at the max 750mA current @ 6V on the ED, but when running at 12V, I actually tune it down to about 400mA and they work great.

Here's a little more info on chopping/current limiting:
http://www.stepperworld.com/Tutorials/pgCurrentControl.htm

!c

6

I've looked at the easystepper and I don't believe it can handle the motor. The motor is set for 24VDC, 1.12Amps/Phase. I also have a second motor I plan to use the same system to control which has even higher requirements. I believe that using an external driver deals with this, and I can use to Arduino solely as a controller.

Ultimately I am trying to avoid purchasing a massively expensive controller capable of receiving commands via ethernet. This things run $1500 and up. An Arduino with an ethernet shield may be able to all I would be using the fancy controller for.

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I am more concerned to confirm that the arduino is able to produce the pulses

Yep that's no problem for the Arduino.