I am building an automatic bottle label dispenser and applicator unit for a bottling line. I am using 2 x nema 23 motors, one to dispense the label from the roll of labels and another to rotate the bottle and seal the label on the bottle. The first motor is triggered by an IR sensor which indicates that a bottle is approaching down the conveyor. the second is triggered after a short time delay controlled by a potentiometer. I am unfamiliar with stepper motors and need to know if I need a chopper drive controller for each motor and if I can control all of the above from a single uno r3 board. Finally I believe that the higher the voltage on the stepper motor, the less delay and getting to desired torque. I was planning to use a 12 v supply as the torque required is quite low. Would I be safer to use a 24v or even 48v supply. Thank you in anticipation.
NEMA 23 only tells us the motor mounting (faceplate) dimensions. It does not tell us the type of stepper (unipolar, bipolar), the number of phases, the coil current, steps per revolution, etc.
The TB6600 driver is popular driver for stepper motors up to 4A coil current.
You do not have to run the motor at max coil current. If the motor performs well at a lower coil current the motor and driver will run cooler and last longer.
To get max torque and speed, run the highest motor supply voltage allowed by the driver. Drivers will have a minimum voltage that must be met. 12V is fine if it will yield the required torque and speed.
To get higher speeds the motors must be accelerated. The AccelStepper library and the MobaTools stepper libraries will do acceleration. The Accelstepper library is very powerful and the MobaTools is a bit less so, but IMO a bit easier to learn.
Each stepper driver will require 2 pins (step and direction) and an optional enable pin. An Uno will easily handle 2 motors and an IR sensor. A Nano is smaller and, I think, easier to incorporate in a permanent installation but has the same functionality of the Uno. Uno is OK for development.