Hi my son has designed a time lapse motion track bed we are having real problems with the circuit board and wiring we have had several attempts and at one point had it all working but then it seems to have blown something. its getting expensive now and I was wondering if anyone could help wire this up for us happy to pay and ship anywhere in uk.
We are using the following 4 wire stepper motor, Arduino board, Reprap stepstick A4988 motor driver control board.
If anyone can help it would be appreciated my son has put a lot of time and effort into this but we seem to be stumped by the circuitry or control to stop the boards from blowing.
This seems to suggest that if you have any potential between your logic power and stepper motor grounds, magic smoke may come out.
Make sure you are drawing power from the same mains source and that all grounds are terminated at a single location to minimize ground loops in high current applications. While you are at it, check the spec on your stepper motor and ensure your hardware has the current specs to drive it.
Also, make sure that the stepper driver current limiting pot is turned down low and then slowly raise it up until your steppers move.
Hi thanks for this I think as per the other post suggests current overload to the board might be the issue but we just donāt have the in depth knowledge of electronics my son is an aerospace engineer so is good with jet engine parts!
thanks for your help. Yes we are using the 12v battery to power the board and stepper driver. Not sure what you mean regarding a linear regulator supplying the logic? The power to the Ardunio comes directly from the battery. The A4988 is then powered from the board.
I was looking at your schematic and not your wiring diagram. The schematic shows a 3.3-5V supply. You are just using voltage from the Arduino which is powered from your PC to supply the logic on the stepper driver.
Yeah, get a lower current stepper or get a higher current driver and a second battery in series if you want this to work. Sounds like you donāt have any real torque requirement, so a lower current stepper is better.
My son is worried as the Nema 17 stepper has half the torque to the one we used do you think this will do the job to move the bed with the camera attached/
The short answer is, it depends on your mechanism. I could lift a car with the right pully setup.
If itās a belt drive, your sled is on a ball bearing rail, and there is no incline, then I donāt think you need much force to overcome friction.
If you have a fishing scale, I would remove the belt, load up the sled and see what it takes to get it moving, then convert back to Newtons to see what torque you need.
Note, all Nema 17 motors are not created equal, so make sure you check the torque specs of the specific model. Make sure it is less than 2A. I suggest the 1.68A ones so you have some room.
Note that a typical Nema 17 has a holding torque of 33N-cm, this roughly equates to the ability to lift 3 kg, so pushing it will be significantly less.
