Using a TMC2209 silent stepper motor driver with an arduino

Projects General Guidance
40

ok great news, I was able to get it working to some degree. The problem was the jumper pads on the bottom of the board. Apparently the uart pin is not actually connected to the chip from the factory gate. You have to bridge two of the solder pads with a drop of solder to connect it. The problem, obviously, is that there is no documentation that says this! There is a vague hint that I saw somewhere in the wateroff website. No datasheet, nothing. No wonder things are such slow going.

To determine which pads to bridge, I had to test things with a multimeter. There is a group of 3 pads on the bottom of the board. The middle one has to be bridged to the one on the left, when the board is viewed with the pads at the bottom of the board. So the pin marked uart is on the right hand side, although when holding it like this you cannot see the silkscreen printing.

This is the code I used to test the VACTUAL. I am still having problems, apparently, however it may be a problem with the arduino software, I am just about to reboot and keep trying, but thought I should post here first in gratitude.

#include <SpeedyStepper.h> //Simple & good stepper library, get it.

#include <TMCStepper.h>

#define DIR_PIN          2 // Direction
#define STEP_PIN         3 // Step
#define SERIAL_PORT Serial1 // HardwareSerial port 
#define DRIVER_ADDRESS 0b00 // TMC2209 Driver address according to MS1 and MS2

#define R_SENSE 0.11f // Match to your driver
                      // SilentStepStick series use 0.11
                      // UltiMachine Einsy and Archim2 boards use 0.2
                      // Panucatt BSD2660 uses 0.1
                      // Watterott TMC5160 uses 0.075

bool shaft = false;  // ONLY NEEDED FOR CHANGING DIRECTION VIA UART, NO NEED FOR DIR PIN FOR THIS

TMC2208Stepper driver(&SERIAL_PORT, R_SENSE);
SpeedyStepper stepper;
int accel = 0;

void setup() {
stepper.connectToPins(STEP_PIN, DIR_PIN); // INITIALIZE SpeedyStepper
SERIAL_PORT.begin(115200);      // INITIALIZE UART TMC2209
Serial.begin(115200);
delay(500);
Serial.println(F("Serial Initialized"));

  driver.begin();                // Initialize driver
                           
  driver.toff(5);                 // Enables driver in software

  driver.rms_current(600);       // Set motor RMS current
  Serial.print("current set to:");
  Serial.println(driver.rms_current());
 
  driver.microsteps(256);           // Set microsteps to 1/2

  driver.pwm_autoscale(true);   // Needed for stealthChop
  driver.en_spreadCycle(true);   // Toggle spreadCycle for smooth & silent operation

  stepper.setCurrentPositionInSteps(0);                   // Set zero position
  stepper.setSpeedInStepsPerSecond(400);              //Set Speed
  stepper.setAccelerationInStepsPerSecondPerSecond(400);   //Set acceleration, smaller value for super smooth direction changing

}

void loop() {

uint16_t msread=driver.microsteps();
Serial.print(F("Read microsteps via UART to test UART receive : "));    Serial.println(msread); 

//Serial.println(F("Move 6400 steps forward at 600ma"));
driver.rms_current(600); 
//stepper.moveToPositionInSteps(6400);

//Serial.println(F("Wait 3sec and turn current low so you can turn the motor shaft"));
//driver.rms_current(10); 
//delay(3000);

//Serial.println(F("Move back to 0 position at 300ma"));
//driver.rms_current(300); 
//stepper.moveToPositionInSteps(0);

//MOVE MOTOR VIA UART AND CHANGE DIRECTION VIA SOFTWARE, IT RUNS AS LONG AS YOU LET IT... PROBABLY ONLY USEFUL WITH ENCODER. THE VALUE SETS ONLY THE SPEED.
Serial.println("move under board control");
//driver.TPWMTHRS(47);//transition threshold from one pwm mode to the other one, stealthchop to spreadcyccle I think, in clock periods per 1/256 microstep, the internal clock is 12 mhz 

accel=500;
Serial.print("accel:");
Serial.println(accel);
long int spd = 102400;
Serial.print("spd:");
Serial.println(spd);
for (long int i = 0; i <=spd; i = i + accel){
driver.VACTUAL(i); //SET SPEED OF MOTOR
Serial.print("vactual set to:");
Serial.println(driver.VACTUAL());
delay(100);

}

for (long int i = spd; i >=0; i = i - accel){
driver.VACTUAL(i); //SET SPEED OF MOTOR
Serial.print("deccelerating, vactual set to:");
Serial.println(driver.VACTUAL());
delay(100);

}

//Serial.println("try to move stepper using the speedystepper library method step dir pins");
//stepper.moveToPositionInSteps(6400);
//delay(7000); // MOTOR MOVES 2 SEC THEN STOPS
//Serial.println("try again to move stepper using the speedystepper library method step dir pins");
//stepper.moveToPositionInSteps(0);


shaft = !shaft; // REVERSE DIRECTION
driver.shaft(shaft); // SET DIRECTION

}