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  • Author Author: 14rhb
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My First Stepper Motor

14rhb

I'm not sure how I've managed this; I've read plenty of articles on controlling stepper motors, stripped stepper motors from old printers to keep them and even bought a nice set of 5x NEMA steppers for making a 3D printer....but I've never actually got around to powering and controlling one. Seeing all the cool things E14 members are making and especially in the Movers and Shakers Project14 I decided I really must get one working.

 

I had a A4988 mini driver board that was for my 3D printer and searched the internet on wiring that up. The article I worked to was here so no praise to me on any account apart from being able to push wires into a breadboard. Upon coding my Arduino Nano I could hear the stepper making a faint clicking noise and there was definite attempts for it to move. I searched around some more as the colours to my motor were different to those in the example and finally made a few changes....and off it went in a complete revolution. I added some tape as a marked and made a short recording of the historic moment

NB: the ESP8266 is nothing to do with this blog post]

 

Now I'm over that hurdle I can actually make something with it.....so off to the shed I'm going (I'll post a picture later on).

 

Rod

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Top Comments

  • in reply to 14rhb

    To make a  3D scanner you only need a stepper turntable, arduino, webcam and a line laser....

    when you finish the printer the Cyclops 3D scanner is 3D printable

     

    https://github.com/LibreScanner/horus

    https://www.bq.com/en/support/ciclop/support-sheet

    https://reprap.org/wiki/Horus

  • in reply to Gough Lui

    Gough,

     

    More good points, I look forward to reading your roadtest. Between all the roadtesters we should throw up some good ideas.

     

    Rod

  • in reply to 14rhb

    I thought about going out to a local park as well - aside from suspicious eyes, there can still be issues. The noise on 2.4Ghz is pervasive - it only takes someone running by with a Fitbit on their arm to give you a few spikes here and there. Not only that ... powering everything is going to be fun too as most inverters aren't the best for EMC and do emit their own RF noise which can cause some instruments to have elevated noise floor. Most of my parks are not far enough from housing to guarantee a low noise floor, and those that are are rough and riddled with trees. My proposal instead looked at moderately-close range reception but by changing the (slightly non-standard) AP's output power, channelisation and width to provide a clear distinctive signal. This would be backed up with regular iperf3 throughput testing at a number of places around the house just for comparison. It's a hard RoadTest to deliver anything great, but if they're intent on having someone try it, it's better than just staring at the box .

     

    Even if it doesn't show anything, it's still worth doing as you might learn something about the limits of your equipment in case you ever need to do something similar again. Finding out the limits of detection and the variance just of your gear is important, as is knowing what your neighbourhood is like RF-wise.

     

    - Gough

  • in reply to Gough Lui

    Some great ideas, thanks Gough; I can't believe I've spent so long missing out on all this fun !

     

    Good comments about the Molex roadtest, that migh mean a big part of my testing will be nugatory...but I'll push on anyway to show my ideas. As you will see later on, my application centered on testing with minimal equipments. I have thought about multipath and the cluttered WiFi band due to neighbours etc....I was thinking about going for a 12v portable setup and testing them out in a field. My only concern would be trying to explain myself if someone calls the police to report 'suspicious' activity.

     

    Rod

  • in reply to 14rhb

    It wouldn't be bad as an art installation - think auto-cueing back and forth ... playing a section on a record on loop would be pretty interesting. Or perhaps playing records backwards to reveal hidden messages ...

     

    Your idea with antennas might make much better sense if working with a directional antenna. I would expect most omnis to be so close to perfectly omni that any multipath in my own room is going to cancel out any possibility of seeing a result. But it would be useful as an antenna rotator. Maybe if you do it on two axes with a Yagi, you could get a 2D "heatmap" to see people through walls using Wi-Fi. Mechanical beam-steering ... perhaps with 2D control, you can get it to track amateur radio cube-sats in low-earth-orbit across the sky.

     

    If you place a few plastic bins on the outer edge, you can fasten a pipe to the turntable and use it as a rotary sorter for marbles ... or components! Maybe an automated resistor sorter?

     

    - Gough