I am new to electronics and Arduino but not coding, i have got used to the basics with LEDs and low voltage things but now want to use higher voltage components.
I was wondering what is the best way to synchronize a DC motor with a stepper motor? Basically i have a DC motor and want to get it's motion by receiving it's analog signal but then duplicate the movement using a more powerful 12v stepper motor.
I have read that to run more powerful components with the Arduino pins i need to use a external power source and then run it through a "N-Channel MOSFET Transistor". After more searching online i have also found "EasyDriver Stepper Motor Driver" and "SainSmart L293D Motor Drive Shield" which seems to be able to run multiple motors, these will apparently also run the stepper motor but i might be wrong. Out of these which would work best for this task or is there other that are perhaps better?
Also in terms of duplicating the movement of the DC motor with the stepper motor is this a fairly straightforward task or would it involve maths to remap the values? Has anyone done this type of thing before?
Basically i want to get the values which turn a motor. Analog signal is probably the wrong term to use as i am fairly new to electronic sorry, the direct current or possibly PWM i think is what i wanted maybe.
I was thinking rather than replace the DC motor with a stepper i could just get it's current and run the stepper also. I wanted the DC motor as it has more power as far as i understand. It will move a tray on sliders that has been fine with a dc motor however now there will be higher weights so it needs to be more powerful to avoid it from burning out the DC motor.
I just referred to it as analog signal because i did a simple test with a spare DC motor where i sent it the 5V pin and then send it back into a analog input of the Arduino and it seemed to show results in the serial monitor. From what i understand though doing this can burn out the board which is why i ask about the EasyDriver and MOSFET Transistors etc, that was what i mainly wanted to know. Out of all of these the SainSmart L293D Motor Drive Shield looks most compatible and easy to use with the Ardunio however i am not fully sure if it is what i need for this project.
What you are doing sounds needlessly complex. Stepper motors can be quite powerful, large enough to drive a heavy milling machine table, so why not use a stepper instead of the DC motor?
It sounds like you are trying to read the DC motor current which is not going to have a linear relationship to position. To get position information you need to use a potentiometer (as a hobby servo does) or an encoder, either optical or magnetic. If you used a stepper instead, the position would be known and the same number of pulses could be issued to the second motor.
A little more information about your project would be useful:
How much load is the DC motor moving and at what speed?
What is the purpose of the stepper motor?