thanks, that may be useful yet. It doesn't help me actually write a program for arduino, but may help answer the question of how noisy the stepper is even when the right options are used. If it's noisy anyway, no point continuing. I don't have an ftdi usb to serial converter though, I may buy one for the occasion. I tried using the arduino mega2650 as the usb to serial device by putting the reset line of the board to ground, causing the mcu to become inert, and then using the right pins on the board to tap into the serial port after the usb to serial converter, but it didin't work for some reason.