Inconsistent stepper motors!

Other Hardware Robotics
2

Hi murf83,

I don't have any actual code to share, but have a few things for you to check:

  1. You set the enable pin LOW. Verify that LOW enables the motor.
  2. You loop 3230 times for 1 rotation. In that loop all you do is set the DIR pin to high. It is never set LOW. Also, should you pulse the STEP pin instead?
  3. When you do pulse the STEP pin (after the if statement), you don't give the pulse a duration.

This is what I would expect (Caveat - I have not compiled this or tested it. The real details depend on your specific motor.):

#define STEP_PIN         54
#define DIR_PIN          55
#define ENABLE_PIN       38

const int ROTATION = 3230; // pulses in 1 rotation
const int PULSEWIDTH = xxx;  // each pulse is xxx ms long
const int BETWEEN = xxx; // ms between pulses

void setup() {
  pinMode(STEP_PIN, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(DIR_PIN, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(ENABLE_PIN, OUTPUT);
  
  digitalWrite(ENABLE_PIN, LOW);  // low  = enable motor control
  digitalWrite(DIR_PIN, HIGH);  // high = direction xxx
}

void loop(){

  for (int pulseCnt=0; pulseCnt<ROTATION; pulseCnt++)
  {
    digitalWrite(STEP_PIN    , HIGH);
    delay(PULSEWIDTH);
    digitalWrite(STEP_PIN    , LOW);
    delay(BETWEEN);
  }
}