I'm trying to save money buy making my own stepper motors as I see the good nema's get very expensive. I see there's a few kinds of controller boards out there, but seeing that I'm purposely making these motors to be fairly strong, how do I make a controller for my specific motor designs? Will an L298n board run pretty much any stepper motor or do i need to modify their design to be able to meet the power requirements of my motors? I'm not currently sure exactly of any electrical values my motors will have, just asking if a slightly bigger motor of the same type could be run or if there are boards made for high power motors?
Do you have any idea of the cost of making your own stepper? Its $1000's just to set up
the tooling to produce the laminations, pricing it well beyond the hobbiest...
Modern stepper motors are extremely cheap in fact, the cheapest form of robust industrial
motor you can get.
MarkT:
. . . Modern stepper motors are extremely cheap . . .
Agreed. Even if time spent doing this didn't come at any opportunity costs, I struggle to imagine how one could could possibly build a stepper motor for less than what they they cost already made.
SupaVillain:
just asking if a slightly bigger motor of the same type could be run or if there are boards made for high power motors?
There is a huge selection of stepper motor drivers. I've read from several reliable sources, the L298N is a terrible controller for stepper motors. There are many better alternatives though these alternatives will likely cost more than the infamous L298N.
L298 is not a controller - it is just a current driver.
The controller make the pulses that the driver supplies to the motor pins.
So if an Arduino supplies the pulses to the current driver input, the Arduino is the controller.
There are MOSFET based current drivers that can do a better job. Start by looking at pololu.com.
As for DIY stepper motor - going to be hard to beat the cost of a manufactured motor with all the professional engineering hours that went into the design and build of it.
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please refrain from discussing the possibility of motor fabrication.
I see nema 34's for like 40 dollars a piece. Buying everything at the nema 23 level of cost adds up to about 200 dollars at least when you get controller board and power supplies
Those are some entertaining motors you found.
That first link had a stepper controlled with relays! I'd comment on the practicality of using relays as a stepper driver but I'm not sure if it's allowed.
SupaVillain:
please refrain from discussing the possibility of motor fabrication.
Is it okay to discuss the practicality of motor fabrication?
SupaVillain:
I see nema 34's for like 40 dollars a piece. Buying everything at the nema 23 level of cost adds up to about 200 dollars at least when you get controller board and power supplies
Whatever about the possibility or practicality of building your own stepper motor it seems rather pointless to go to all that trouble and then use a second-rate driver to get poor performance from the motor.
A stepper motor driver is a complex piece of electronics. Just buy one that someone with a lot more expertise has designed and tested.
Of course if you want to study and experiment with the design of stepper driver that is a different matter. But I would do that experimenting with an off-the-shelf stepper motor that is "standard" rather than DIY.
...R