I'm trying to troubleshoot why my salvaged bipolar stepper motor isn't rotating--it's just sort of hiccuping back and forth, and then pauses for 500 ms before doing the whole jittery thing again. Could it be because my code
#define motorSteps = 200 isn't correct? I don't know how many steps make up the 360 degree rotation on this thing.
I'm using the stepper tutorial and code found in the Arduino library.
Thanks!
The most likely cause of this is that you have hooked the wires up in the wrong order.
Another possibility is that you are trying to step the motor much faster than i can handle, but this is not very likely.
I've double and triple checked the wiring diagram for the h-bridge and the bipolar stepper motor ( from igoe's Physical computing) and I know my set up is correct. For some reason the stepper won't turn--it pulses forward one step and then back one step. The motion is hardly perceptible. I'm thinking it has to be a code thing, but I'm using code from the library.
I was reading on another website about someone having the same problem but using a different microcontroller? I posted that info below:
[I have the MakingThings stepper motor (Jameco P/N 237454). When I send a command like "/stepper/0/positionrequested 1000" it just flips back and forth instead of continuing in one direction for 1000 steps. Motor specs call for 9.6V at 0.5A. The wall wart I have hooked to VExt1 is 6V at 0.4A. I figured that was close enough, but I have no idea what I'm doing. So why does it just turn back and forth? Re: Why does my stepper just turn back and forth? Posted by Aaron Tunell at January 25. 2008 is it moving back and forth real fast? like a vibration almost? If so, you'll need to turn up the duty and fiddle with the speed maybe. I got fine results after i turned the duty up to full blast. Before i did so, though, i got poor response.]
Any ideas? My motor is doing the same thing. Does anyone know what "duty" is? (giggle--no seriously)
Thanks.
Duty is probably the dutycycle of a squarewave that pulses the stepper controller circuit.
How long do you keep the pins that control the two halfes of the H bridge high ? That would correspond to the dutycycle mentioned.
Are you absloutely sure you hooked up the wires correctly ? Did you meassure the wires to make sure you know which of the wires belong to the two coils ? You can't take the colorcoding of the wires for granted.
Are you using the correct voltage for the motor ?
Can you post your code ?
mikmo--
Thanks for the help. I emailed you some .jpgs of my wiring and the different code I've been using. I hope that's okay.
Hope to hear from you.
mg
You have ;.)
and...
what is the solution? please post te answer if there is one. let's help all of us here.
From the picture send to me i could see that The Arduino board ground was not connected to the ground of the powersupply used for the stepper motor. I don't know if this solved the problem. But the two grounds should definitly be connected 