Sparkfun Stepper Motor Drivers For Mac
Selecting the Right Motor Driver Before we get started, let’s talk about how to find a motor driver for your needs. The first step is to figure out what type of motors you are using and to research their specifications. Picking a motor driver for a motor that is not powerful enough isn’t helpful.
SPARKFUN EASYDRIVER STEPPER MOTOR DRIVER - They are fantastic and not only believe in the value of OSHW but actively support designers like me. This will set the Vcc on the Easy Driver to 3. Download the drivers for USB to USB PicoBoards. Not sure which. Mac Instructions. Windows XP users: Download the PicoBoard Windows Driver (1.71 MB). The correct driver. Then skip to step #3 below. Mac OS X Driver (419 KB). Installing the ftdI driver manually on os X If you're using a standard Arduino Uno. If you're using the SparkFun RedBoard, there's one extra step needed to.
Also, keep in mind there are (stepper, DC, brushless), so make sure you are looking for the correct type of motor driver. You will need to spec your motor driver and make sure its current and voltage range are compatible with your motor(s). First, you need to make sure your motor driver can handle the rated voltage of your motors.
While you can usually run motors a bit above their ratings, it tends to reduce the lifespan of the motor. Current draw is the second factor.
Your motor driver needs to be capable of driving as much current as your motors will pull. As a general rule, go straight to the stalled current number for a motor (the current draw present when you are holding the motor still). A motor will pull the maximum current when it is stalled. Even if you don’t plan on stalling your motor in your project, this is a safe number to use. If your motor driver can’t handle that much current, then it is time to find a new motor driver (or motor).
You may also notice motor drivers often have max continuous current and max peak current listed. These specs are worth noting depending on your application and how much stress your motor will endure. This guide covers the TB6612FNG motor driver which has a supply range of 2.5V to 13.5V and is capable of 1.2A continuous current and 3.2A peak current (per channel), so it works pretty well with most of our DC motors. If the TB6612FNG does not fit your project’s specifications, check out our various other motor driver boards. Board Overview Let’s discuss the pinout for the TB6612FNG breakout.
We basically have three types of pins: power, input, and output, and they are all labeled on the back of the board. Back of the board Each pin and its function is covered in the table below. Pin Label Function Power/Input/Output Notes VM Motor Voltage Power This is where you provide power for the motors (2.2V to 13.5V) VCC Logic Voltage Power This is the voltage to power the chip and talk to the microcontroller (2.7V to 5.5V) GND Ground Power Common Ground for both motor voltage and logic voltage (all GND pins are connected) STBY Standby Input Allows the H-bridges to work when high (has a pulldown resistor so it must actively pulled high) AIN1/BIN1 Input 1 for channels A/B Input One of the two inputs that determines the direction. AIN2/BIN2 Input 2 for channels A/B Input One of the two inputs that determines the direction.
PWMA/PWMB PWM input for channels A/B Input PWM input that controls the speed A01/B01 Output 1 for channels A/B Output One of the two outputs to connect the motor A02/B02 Output 2 for channels A/B Output One of the two outputs to connect the motor Now, for a quick overview of how to control each of the channels. If you are using an Arduino, don’t worry about this too much as the library takes care of all of this for you. If you are using a different control platform, pay attention. When the outputs are set to High/Low your motor will run.
When they are set to Low/High the motor will run in the opposite direction. In both cases, the speed is controlled by the PWM input. In1 In2 PWM Out1 Out2 Mode H H H/L L L Short brake L H H L H CCW L H L L L Short brake H L H H L CW H L L L L Short brake L L H OFF OFF Stop. Hardware Setup For this demo, we’ll use a small chassis with the included motors and wheels as well as an Arduino Pro Mini. The first step is to find a power supply. While it is best to find one that will work with the motors and logic, that is not always possible.
Sometimes your motors want 24V, but your microcontroller only wants 5V. In that case, it is probably easiest to use 2 power supplies. For this demo, we’ll be using the 4xAA battery holder that comes with the Actobitty chasis. The battery holder should output 6V since each alkaline AA battery is 1.5V (NiMH AAs are only 1.2V).
The Arduino Pro Mini can handle up to about 12V on the RAW power line, which it will regulate down to 5V. The next step is to connect everything using your preferred project platform. We’re using a piece of the snappable protoboard with female headers, so we can just plug in the motor driver and Arduino Pro Mini. If you are using different pins, or a different microcontroller, remember that the PWM pins of the motor driver need to be PWM pins on your microcontroller. Here is a Fritzing diagram showing how all the connections were made. Here is the final project assembled on the Actobitty chassis.
This is the Arduino library. It provides an object-oriented interface for 2, 3 or 4 pin stepper motors and motor drivers. The standard Arduino IDE includes the Stepper library for stepper motors. It is perfectly adequate for simple, single motor applications. Significantly improves on the standard Arduino Stepper library in several ways:. Supports acceleration and deceleration. Supports multiple simultaneous steppers, with independent concurrent stepping on each stepper.
API functions never delay or block. Supports 2, 3 and 4 wire steppers, plus 3 and 4 wire half steppers. Supports alternate stepping functions to enable support of AFMotor. Supports stepper drivers such as the Sparkfun EasyDriver (based on 3967 driver chip). Very slow speeds are supported. Extensive API. Subclass support The latest version of this documentation can be downloaded from The version of the package that this documentation refers to can be downloaded from Example Arduino programs are included to show the main modes of use.
You can also find online help and discussion at Please use that group for all questions and discussions on this topic. Do not contact the author directly, unless it is to discuss commercial licensing.
Before asking a question or reporting a bug, please read. Tested on Arduino Diecimila and Mega with arduino-0018 & arduino-0021 on OpenSuSE 11.1 and avr-libc-1.6.1-1.15, cross-avr-binutils-2.19-9.1, cross-avr-gcc-4.1.320080612-26.5. Tested on Teensy including Teensy 3.1 built using Arduino IDE 1.0.5 with teensyduino addon 1.18 and later.
Installation Install in the usual way: unzip the distribution zip file to the libraries sub-folder of your sketchbook. Theory This code uses speed calculations as described in 'Generate stepper-motor speed profiles in real time' by David Austin or or with the exception that uses steps per second rather than radians per second (because we dont know the step angle of the motor) An initial step interval is calculated for the first step, based on the desired acceleration On subsequent steps, shorter step intervals are calculated based on the previous step until max speed is achieved. Adafruit Motor Shield V2 The included examples AFMotor. are for Adafruit Motor Shield V1 and do not work with Adafruit Motor Shield V2.
See for examples that work with Adafruit Motor Shield V2. Donations This library is offered under a free GPL license for those who want to use it that way. We try hard to keep it up to date, fix bugs and to provide free support.
If this library has helped you save time or money, please consider donating at or here: Trademarks is a trademark of AirSpayce Pty Ltd. The mark was first used on April 26 2010 for international trade, and is used only in relation to motor control hardware and software. It is not to be confused with any other similar marks covering other goods and services. Copyright This software is Copyright (C) 2010-2018 Mike McCauley.
Use is subject to license conditions. The main licensing options available are GPL V2 or Commercial: Open Source Licensing GPL V2 This is the appropriate option if you want to share the source code of your application with everyone you distribute it to, and you also want to give them the right to share who uses it. If you wish to use this software under Open Source Licensing, you must contribute all your source code to the open source community in accordance with the GPL Version 2 when your application is distributed. See Commercial Licensing This is the appropriate option if you are creating proprietary applications and you are not prepared to distribute and share the source code of your application.
To purchase a commercial license, contact Revision History Version 1.0 Initial release 1.1 Added speed function to get the current speed. 1.2 Added runSpeedToPosition submitted by Gunnar Arndt. 1.3 Added support for stepper drivers (ie with Step and Direction inputs) with pins 1 1.4 Added functional contructor to support AFMotor, contributed by Limor, with example sketches. 1.5 Improvements contributed by Peter Mousley: Use of microsecond steps and other speed improvements to increase max stepping speed to about 4kHz. New option for user to set the min allowed pulse width. Added checks for already running at max speed and skip further calcs if so. 1.6 Fixed a problem with wrapping of microsecond stepping that could cause stepping to hang.
Reported by Sandy Noble. Removed redundant lastRunTime member. 1.7 Fixed a bug where setCurrentPosition did not always work as expected. Reported by Peter Linhart. 1.8 Added support for 4 pin half-steppers, requested by Harvey Moon 1.9 setCurrentPosition now also sets motor speed to 0. 1.10 Builds on Arduino 1.0 1.11 Improvments from Michael Ellison: Added optional enable line support for stepper drivers Added inversion for step/direction/enable lines for stepper drivers 1.12 Announce Google Group 1.13 Improvements to speed calculation.
Cost of calculation is now less in the worst case, and more or less constant in all cases. This should result in slightly beter high speed performance, and reduce anomalous speed glitches when other steppers are accelerating. However, its hard to see how to replace the sqrt required at the very first step from 0 speed.
1.14 Fixed a problem with compiling under arduino 0021 reported by EmbeddedMan 1.15 Fixed a problem with runSpeedToPosition which did not correctly handle running backwards to a smaller target position. Added examples 1.16 Fixed some cases in the code where abs was used instead of fabs. 1.17 Added example ProportionalControl 1.18 Fixed a problem: If one calls the funcion runSpeed when Speed is zero, it makes steps without counting. Reported by Friedrich, Klappenbach. 1.19 Added MotorInterfaceType and symbolic names for the number of pins to use for the motor interface.
Updated examples to suit. Replaced individual pin assignment variables pin1, pin2 etc with array pin4.
pins member changed to interface. Added pinInverted array to simplify pin inversion operations. Added new function setOutputPins which sets the motor output pins. It can be overridden in order to provide, say, serial output instead of parallel output Some refactoring and code size reduction. 1.20 Improved documentation and examples to show need for correctly specifying and friends. 1.21 Fixed a problem where desiredSpeed could compute the wrong step acceleration when speed was small but non-zero. Reported by Brian Schmalz.
Precompute sqrttwoa to improve performance and max possible stepping speed 1.22 Added Bounce.pde example Fixed a problem where calling moveTo, setMaxSpeed, setAcceleration more frequently than the step time, even with the same values, would interfere with speed calcs. Now a new speed is computed only if there was a change in the set value. Reported by Brian Schmalz. 1.23 Rewrite of the speed algorithms in line with Now expect smoother and more linear accelerations and decelerations. The desiredSpeed function was removed. 1.24 Fixed a problem introduced in 1.23: with runToPosition, which did never returned 1.25 Now ignore attempts to set acceleration to 0.0 1.26 Fixed a problem where certina combinations of speed and accelration could cause oscillation about the target position.
1.27 Added stop function to stop as fast as possible with current acceleration parameters. Also added new Quickstop example showing its use. 1.28 Fixed another problem where certain combinations of speed and acceleration could cause oscillation about the target position. Added support for 3 wire full and half steppers such as Hard Disk Drive spindle. Contributed by Yuri Ivatchkovitch. 1.29 Fixed a problem that could cause a DRIVER stepper to continually step with some sketches.
Reported by Vadim. 1.30 Fixed a problem that could cause stepper to back up a few steps at the end of accelerated travel with certain speeds. Reported and patched by jolo. 1.31 Updated author and distribution location details to airspayce.com 1.32 Fixed a problem with enableOutputs and setEnablePin on Arduino Due that prevented the enable pin changing stae correctly. Reported by Duane Bishop.
1.33 Fixed an error in example AFMotorConstantSpeed.pde did not setMaxSpeed; Fixed a problem that caused incorrect pin sequencing of FULL3WIRE and HALF3WIRE. Unfortunately this meant changing the signature for all step. functions.
Added example MotorShield, showing how to use AdaFruit Motor Shield to control a 3 phase motor such as a HDD spindle motor (and without using the AFMotor library. 1.34 Added setPinsInverted(bool pin1Invert, bool pin2Invert, bool pin3Invert, bool pin4Invert, bool enableInvert) to allow inversion of 2, 3 and 4 wire stepper pins. Requested by Oleg. 1.35 Removed default args from setPinsInverted(bool, bool, bool, bool, bool) to prevent ambiguity with setPinsInverted(bool, bool, bool). Reported by Mac Mac. 1.36 Changed enableOutputs and disableOutputs to be virtual so can be overridden.
Sparkfun Stepper Motor Drivers For Macbook Pro
Added new optional argument 'enable' to constructor, which allows you toi disable the automatic enabling of outputs at construction time. Suggested by Guido.
1.37 Fixed a problem with step1 that could cause a rogue step in the wrong direction (or not, depending on the setup-time requirements of the connected hardware). Reported by Mark Tillotson. 1.38 run function incorrectly always returned true. Updated function and doc so it returns true if the motor is still running to the target position. 1.39 Updated typos in keywords.txt, courtesey Jon Magill. 1.40 Updated documentation, including testing on Teensy 3.1 1.41 Fixed an error in the acceleration calculations, resulting in acceleration of haldf the intended value 1.42 Improved support for FULL3WIRE and HALF3WIRE output pins.
These changes were in Yuri's original contribution but did not make it into production. 1.43 Added DualMotorShield example. Shows how to use to control 2 x 2 phase steppers using the Itead Studio Arduino Dual Stepper Motor Driver Shield model IM120417015.
1.44 examples/DualMotorShield/DualMotorShield.ino examples/DualMotorShield/DualMotorShield.pde was missing from the distribution. 1.45 Fixed a problem where if setAcceleration was not called, there was no default acceleration. Reported by Michael Newman. 1.45 Fixed inaccuracy in acceleration rate by using Equation 15, suggested by Sebastian Gracki. Performance improvements in runSpeed suggested by Jaakko Fagerlund.
1.46 Fixed error in documentation for runToPosition. Reinstated time calculations in runSpeed since new version is reported not to work correctly under some circumstances.
Reported by Oleg V Gavva. 1.48 2015-08-25 Added new class that can manage multiple AccelSteppers, and cause them all to move to selected positions at such a (constant) speed that they all arrive at their target position at the same time.
Suitable for X-Y flatbeds etc. Added new method maxSpeed to to return the currently configured maxSpeed. 1.49 2016-01-02 Testing with VID28 series instrument stepper motors and EasyDriver. OK, although with light pointers and slow speeds like 180 full steps per second the motor movement can be erratic, probably due to some mechanical resonance.
Best to accelerate through this speed. Added isRunning. 1.50 2016-02-25 now sets the enable pion to OUTPUT mode if the enable pin is defined. Patch from Piet De Jong. Added notes about the fact that AFMotor. examples do not work with Adafruit Motor Shield V2. 1.51 2016-03-24 Fixed a problem reported by gregor: when resetting the stepper motor position using setCurrentPosition the stepper speed is reset by setting stepInterval to 0, but speed is not reset.
This results in the stepper motor not starting again when calling setSpeed with the same speed the stepper was set to before. 1.52 2016-08-09 Added to keywords.txt. Improvements to efficiency of as suggested by David Grayson. Improvements to speed accuracy as suggested by David Grayson. 1.53 2016-08-14 Backed out Improvements to speed accuracy from 1.52 as it did not work correctly. 1.54 2017-01-24 Fixed some warnings about unused arguments.
Sparkfun Stepper Motor Drivers For Mac Pro
1.55 2017-01-25 Fixed another warning in MultiStepper.cpp 1.56 2017-02-03 Fixed minor documentation error with DIRECTIONCCW and DIRECTIONCW. Reported by David Mutterer.
Added link to Binpress commercial license purchasing. 1.57 2017-03-28 direction moved to protected at the request of Rudy Ercek. SetMaxSpeed and setAcceleration now correct negative values to be positive. 1.58 2018-04-13 Add initialisation for enableInverted in constructor. 1.59 2018-08-28 Update commercial licensing, remove binpress.
Author Mike McCauley DO NOT CONTACT THE AUTHOR DIRECTLY: USE THE LISTS Generated by 1.8.13.