Need help with controlling stepper motor in a diy water pump

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

Hi there,
I built a syringe pump using a NEMA 17 stepper motor and DRV8825, to use in some neuroscience experiment as a reward pump. I'd like to deliver a certain amount of water in regular intervals, and whenever a pushbutton is pressed. For this I've already troubleshot and ditched a couple scripts, due to some fried devices. Now I'm trying to use the accelstepper library and bounce2 to make things right.
I pasted the whole -non working- code below, but basically what I'd like to have it do is:

  • run ~10 steps (that's about what it takes to deliver a drop of water) as fast as possible so I can deliver the reward without much delay
  • give these rewards every 20 seconds regularly
  • also check for a pushbutton, and deliver a reward whenever it's pressed, without affecting the regular interval rewards above (so I can't use delay() )
  • whenever a reward's delivered, output a square pulse to be sent to a DAQ as a reward timestamp
  • ideally I'd also like to have the enable pin, as my circuit makes an audible noise (I know, it's probably not a good sign, but I don't have time to troubleshoot it right now) and I want to minimize that by cutting the power whenever the motor is not stepping

I'm a biologist who's self-taught in all these electrical stuff and arduino, and at this point I'm very much above my pay grade, so any help is highly appreciated. Thanks!

#include <AccelStepper.h>
#include <Bounce2.h>


// set the constants for experiment
int REWARDSIZE = 10; // in number of steps
int MAXSPEED = 1000; // in pins/sec
int ACCEL = 200;
int SPEED = 200;
int REWINTERVAL = 20000; // reward interval in ms
int buttonInterval = 500;
const int stepsPerRevolution = 200;
bool buttonState = false;

const int stepPin = 8; // low: no steps, high: steps
const int directionPin = 9; // low: cw, high: ccw
const int enablePin = 4;  // low: no power to motor, high: motor on

const int ledPin = 2; // indicator light, turns ON in caseof reward
const int rewardTimeStamp = 3; // TTL to Intan
const byte buttonCWpin = 6; // triggers cw (reward)
const byte buttonCCWpin = 7; // triggers ccw (cleaning/adjusting pump)

// define variables
unsigned long curMillis;
unsigned long lastRewardMillis = 0;
unsigned long previousButtonMillis = 0;

// Define motor interface type as driver (used with step and dir pins)
#define motorInterfaceType 1

// Create a stepper object
AccelStepper rewardPump(motorInterfaceType, stepPin, directionPin);

// set enable pin to keep the motor from powering on unnecessarily
// setEnablePin(enablePin); // requires enable/disable outputs before/after using them

// initiate debouncing for buttons
Bounce fwdButton = Bounce();
Bounce revButton = Bounce();

//====================================================SETUP
void setup()
{

  Serial.begin(115200);
  Serial.println("Starting reward pump:");
  Serial.println("Motor is at "); 
  Serial.println(rewardPump.currentPosition());
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(rewardTimeStamp, OUTPUT);

  fwdButton.attach(buttonCWpin, INPUT_PULLUP); fwdButton.interval(5);
  revButton.attach(buttonCCWpin, INPUT_PULLUP); revButton.interval(5);

  digitalWrite(rewardTimeStamp, LOW);

  rewardPump.setMaxSpeed(MAXSPEED);
  rewardPump.setAcceleration(ACCEL);
  rewardPump.setSpeed(SPEED);
  rewardPump.move(-REWARDSIZE);
}

//===================================================LOOP

void loop()
{
//  revButton.update();
  readButton();
  curMillis = millis();
  // enableOutputs();
  if (rewardPump.distanceToGo() == 0)
  {
//    rewardPump.setAcceleration(ACCEL);
    rewardPump.setSpeed(SPEED);
    rewardPump.move(-REWARDSIZE);
    Serial.println("reward");
    Serial.println(rewardPump.currentPosition());
    lastRewardMillis += REWINTERVAL;
  }
  rewardPump.run();  

  if (curMillis - lastRewardMillis >= REWINTERVAL)
  {

    

  }
  
  else if (buttonState)
  {
    digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
    rewardPump.run();
    Serial.println("button reward");
    Serial.println(rewardPump.currentPosition());
    digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); // TODO: do this with attach interrupt + for rewardTimeStamp
  }
//  else if (revButton.fell())
//  {
//    rewardPump.move(150);
//    Serial.println("turning back for cleaning");
//  }
}

//======================================================================

void readButton()
{

  if (millis() - previousButtonMillis >= buttonInterval)
  {
    fwdButton.update();
    if (fwdButton.fell())
    {
      buttonState = true; 
      previousButtonMillis == millis();
    }
    else
    {
      buttonState = false;
    }
  }
}
2

I did expect to see a description of what that current code does and where it fails. Does it move the motor at all?

Why do you check for the button state only every 500ms?

3

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