Hello Everyone,
I am making this post to hopefully get help with using a Ramp 1.4 shield and a Arduino Mega to control a stepper motors for a robot arm project I want to work on. I chose it since it is able to drive 5 stepper motors which is how many I plan to have on my arm, but I have been struggling on how to get the ramps to work at all.
I tested my stepper motor drivers (A4988) with all my motors on a breadboard with a 12V power supply and I got it to work just fine with the Accelstepper library. How ever when I put the components on the board and try to use it nothing happens at all even with the Ramps 1.4 test code from their website. At this point I just want to see the board do anything at all.
Another note to make is that when I have the ramp hooked up with my computer and try to turn on the 12V power supply, it crashes my laptop completely and I have to restart it.
So I am not sure if I am doing anything wrong or if my board is fried. Any help or suggestions would be of great help.
Here the test code straight from Ramp 1.4 website.
#define X_STEP_PIN 54
#define X_DIR_PIN 55
#define X_ENABLE_PIN 38
#define X_MIN_PIN 3
#define X_MAX_PIN 2
#define Y_STEP_PIN 60
#define Y_DIR_PIN 61
#define Y_ENABLE_PIN 56
#define Y_MIN_PIN 14
#define Y_MAX_PIN 15
#define Z_STEP_PIN 46
#define Z_DIR_PIN 48
#define Z_ENABLE_PIN 62
#define Z_MIN_PIN 18
#define Z_MAX_PIN 19
#define E_STEP_PIN 26
#define E_DIR_PIN 28
#define E_ENABLE_PIN 24
#define Q_STEP_PIN 36
#define Q_DIR_PIN 34
#define Q_ENABLE_PIN 30
#define SDPOWER -1
#define SDSS 53
#define LED_PIN 13
#define FAN_PIN 9
#define PS_ON_PIN 12
#define KILL_PIN -1
#define HEATER_0_PIN 10
#define HEATER_1_PIN 8
#define TEMP_0_PIN 13 // ANALOG NUMBERING
#define TEMP_1_PIN 14 // ANALOG NUMBERING
void setup() {
pinMode(FAN_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(HEATER_0_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(HEATER_1_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(LED_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(X_STEP_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(X_DIR_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(X_ENABLE_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(Y_STEP_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(Y_DIR_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(Y_ENABLE_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(Z_STEP_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(Z_DIR_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(Z_ENABLE_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(E_STEP_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(E_DIR_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(E_ENABLE_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(Q_STEP_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(Q_DIR_PIN , OUTPUT);
pinMode(Q_ENABLE_PIN , OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(X_ENABLE_PIN , LOW);
digitalWrite(Y_ENABLE_PIN , LOW);
digitalWrite(Z_ENABLE_PIN , LOW);
digitalWrite(E_ENABLE_PIN , LOW);
digitalWrite(Q_ENABLE_PIN , LOW);
}
void loop () {
if (millis() %1000 <500)
digitalWrite(LED_PIN, HIGH);
else
digitalWrite(LED_PIN, LOW);
if (millis() %1000 <300) {
digitalWrite(HEATER_0_PIN, HIGH);
digitalWrite(HEATER_1_PIN, LOW);
digitalWrite(FAN_PIN, LOW);
} else if (millis() %1000 <600) {
digitalWrite(HEATER_0_PIN, LOW);
digitalWrite(HEATER_1_PIN, HIGH);
digitalWrite(FAN_PIN, LOW);
} else {
digitalWrite(HEATER_0_PIN, LOW);
digitalWrite(HEATER_1_PIN, LOW);
digitalWrite(FAN_PIN, HIGH);
}
if (millis() %10000 <5000) {
digitalWrite(X_DIR_PIN , HIGH);
digitalWrite(Y_DIR_PIN , HIGH);
digitalWrite(Z_DIR_PIN , HIGH);
digitalWrite(E_DIR_PIN , HIGH);
digitalWrite(Q_DIR_PIN , HIGH);
}
else {
digitalWrite(X_DIR_PIN , LOW);
digitalWrite(Y_DIR_PIN , LOW);
digitalWrite(Z_DIR_PIN , LOW);
digitalWrite(E_DIR_PIN , LOW);
digitalWrite(Q_DIR_PIN , LOW);
}
digitalWrite(X_STEP_PIN , HIGH);
digitalWrite(Y_STEP_PIN , HIGH);
digitalWrite(Z_STEP_PIN , HIGH);
digitalWrite(E_STEP_PIN , HIGH);
digitalWrite(Q_STEP_PIN , HIGH);
delay(1);
digitalWrite(X_STEP_PIN , LOW);
digitalWrite(Y_STEP_PIN , LOW);
digitalWrite(Z_STEP_PIN , LOW);
digitalWrite(E_STEP_PIN , LOW);
digitalWrite(Q_STEP_PIN , LOW);
}
