I decided to build a Star Tracker' for my camera to allow me to take a series of long exposure shots of the heavens. (When you are retired you need to do things to keep you mind active). I bought a 12v 2-phase 4-pin Nema 17 stepper motor to open/close a gate hinge, and a generic board to control it. But the default speed range wasn't really suitable for what I want to do so I decided to reprogram it.
The only IDE I could find was the Arduino IDE so I downloaded it and after a battle with Win 10 got it working and was able to compile a program and recoginse the USB/serial COM3 port. But not surprisingly it didn't recognise my board:
Unknown board
VID: 067B
PID: 2303
This is the board, it uses the L293D chip:
Does anyone know where I can get a board definition that will allow me to download to my board?
Secondly does anyone know what pin numbers I should use in my stepper declaration? My motor has six pins but only pins 1, 3, 4 and 6 are used. Pins 1 and 4 are coil A, 6 and 3 are coil B.
TomGeorge:
Hi,
Welcome to the forum and thanks for reading the intro on how to post a message.
Where did you get the "generic board" from?
What are the specs for the stepper motor?
Thanks... Tom...
Hi Tom, many thanks for the welcome and prompt reply. All of the bits came from AliExpress and china - my usual source for el-cheapo bits to experiment with. The specs you get from those suppliers are rather vague and although they always work as advertised there is little help if you want to do anything out of the ordinary.
The stepper specs were:
UKHeliBob:
Is there a definition of these anywhere ?
Alas no, an associated ad for the controller board shows a WiFi board that plugs into the socket together with a thing like a key fob with buttons that match the controller buttons. If I ever get the correct libraries to allow me to download my program to the controller board I plan to look for a WiFi board I can plug into the controller board and access through my Android phone to control the stepper via an Android program. I can control my camera via WiFi from my phone so I don't have to disturb it by touching controls on the camera. What started as a simple project is slowly drifting to the 'over engineered department'.
The L293DD chip is the stepper driver, not the controller as I thought. A closer look at my board's circuit diagram shows the controller chip is an STC12C2052AD. STC do provide provide programming and up/download tools. Although they have a 'C' compiler their preferred language is assembler. It must be nearly forty years since I programmed in assembler. I'm not sure I want to go down memory lane again.
Can anyone recommend which Arduino boards I should use to control a 12v Nema 17 stepper motor with reasonably fine control of speed around 60rpm?
DickyOZ:
Can anyone recommend which Arduino boards I should use to control a 12v Nema 17 stepper motor with reasonably fine control of speed around 60rpm?
