Driver Easy Download Chip
Virgen Vanier
The EasyDriver is a simple to use stepper motor driver, compatible with anything that can output a digital 0 to 5V pulse (or 0 to 3.3V pulse if you solder SJ2 closed on the EasyDriver). The EasyDriver requires a 6V to 30V supply to power the motor and can power any voltage of stepper motor. The EasyDriver has an on board voltage regulator for the digital interface that can be set to 5V or 3.3V. Connect a 4-wire stepper motor and a microcontroller and you've got precision motor control! EasyDriver drives bi-polar motors, and motors wired as bi-polar. I.e. 4,6, or 8 wire stepper motors.
Can I use the easy driver to run a bipolar NEMA 11 captive stepper motor? Its current per phase is shown as 1 amp. Easy driver spec says that the adjustable current control is from 150mA/phase to 700mA/phase.I am not running this motor at fast speed. The motor is supposed to support axial load of about 4 lbs.Thank you!
I am currently building a 3-axis cnc mill with sparkfun stepper motors, and I was wondering if I could drive a dual motor x-axis with just one easy driver. I would connect the two motors in parallel and run the wires to the same locations on the board. I figured if I used double the rated current to power the motors this would work. Am I correct, or should I buy another easy driver?
Hey! I have a really basic and maybe funny question! But my stepper for an extruder print head requires 0.8A as it is specified on the motor. And the easy board gives max. 0.75; this means that I can't work with this board? -ASYA
After making my own stepper driver, these are worth all the money to just have it done for you. Works fantastic, easy to integrate with, drove mine right from a raspberry pi. Puts out a lot of heat, if you're using a motor to its full capability, consider a fan when mounting these somewhere. The pot is super small, I was turning it with a metal screw driver and it slipped, I touched the capacitors beneath it, it sparked and stopped working. Bummer. I'll totally be ordering a replacement though! It sparked and its fun, Sparkfun. Edit: After having problems while using the 5V it supplies to a teensy, and looking at the schematic, there's no fly-back diode in this, make sure to include one in your project if you intend to use that power!
It works well. Easy to use with literally any microcontroller you can imagine. I use mine with a 3.3V Arduino Pro Mini.Just beware of EMI. The A/B pads and traces leading to them, along with those pins on the chip, and your cabling leading to the stepper motor, will throw off a ton of EMI. This is not a fault of the board, it's just what happens when you switch a stepper motor. It can mess with nearby microcontrollers and ICs. So be careful how you lay out your project - put some distance between the EasyDriver + stepper motor and other components if you can. If you can't keep them isolated by distance, shield sensitive components with conductive, grounded material.
This is the so easy to use. With the example code from the website, it is very streight forward on how to use this driver. It does get very warm. But if you use the sleep mode when the motor does not need to be on, the driver board has time too cool down.
Works great, but chip get hot at .5 amp. Probably not a problem, but I bought the larger, slightly more expensive, version (2 amp amp) and it runs with no noticeable chip heat. I might add that I did not use any of the associated code for either the large or small version. I see no obvious need to change the micro-step options on the fly (except maybe for testing), so I hard wired those and just used the direction and step controls. I drive direction off a port output and step from a counter that automatically toggles an output pin on reaching a selected value. (Note this is outside the std Audrino I/O, but far easier in the long run. I suggest everyone should at least glance at the Atmel manual for the Arduino chip an try using some registers directly.)
Hi, These will get warm, even hot in some cases. The chip is syncing a lot of power and that shows through heat. If you are running this on the higher end of the spec, it is suggested that you manage the heat with a heat sink on the chip.
This is an excellent way to control your stepper motor.But.... The arduino stepper libraries are excellent for controlling connection to 4 wire driver. Some im sure have the delays sorted out so they dont effect the timing on the rest of your code.The easy stepper driver would be so much more powerful if the arduino library was adjusted (for simple folk like me :), especially if acceleration and deceleration timing was also included. I find it difficult to write code without using delay in my project. Maybe im just not so smart :)Tek.
Hooking this up to a microcontroller is simple and changing to 3.3 instead of 5 for logic is trivial. While the chip can go faster, my stepper motor can not so making sure it does not skip required trial and error until I found the minimum delay which the combination of controller and motor could achieve. If you are in a hurry to just make things work (like I was) this really is a great simple driver. Make sure to take time to adjust the current limit for your motor using the test point before plugging the motor in - there is a voltage to current formula in the manual. For low cost this is very useful.
Works as advertised, easy to use, just follow their guides on the product webpage. Make sure to heed their note asking you to not connect/disconnect the motor while the driver is on; this will kill your EasyDriver so don't do it! I loosely wired my motor to the board and it came off during testing and my driver died; fortunately I purchased two boards anticipating I would burn the first one so I made sure to solder proper terminals to the driver the second time around and it's flawless now.
I'm new to using stepper drivers and was building a circuit of my own. It's bigger than most other drivers, but that's great when I'm trying to learn how to use a driver and I don't need it directly interfacing with anything else.I was frustrated before, and after I ordered these I could happily move on to the next steps in my project. Clear documentation and labeling made using these a breeze.
The board works well and easy to program for. I noticed doing small steps or just a few full rotations it's fine. After running full rotations and near high speed the chip gets extremely hot and the motor starts acting jerky. Probably a heat sink will solve that. Does anyone experience this and recommend a particular heatsink?
It can run 4000 steps per second driven by a 16MHz Arduino Pro Mini. Pretty good. It is reliable, but I always switch the motor off after running it for 6000 steps or less. If you leave it on, the full programmed current is flowing through it continuously and it gets really, really hot. Burn your finger hot. I would recommend a heatsink if you are going to leave the motor enabled (like when micro-stepping).Because the module is expensive, I did all of my testing with knock-offs, and fried two of them, then put this one in the finished product for reliability. I highly recommend this driver for smaller motors.
I have not been able to test it with the right kind of stepper motor. The one I have now takes about 2 A, and the driver can not deliver that much. It does make the motor turn, but not at the speed I need. Better motor is on its way, I do not expect any problems, once it has arrived.By the way, it is very easy to use!
A collaborator sent us the link from which they purchased the easy driver. They reported to us that the pins came soldered they ordered the same product. Whereas when we ordered, there were no pins included or soldered. I chatted with customer service and they said they don't sell anything with pins soldered except for one other product. For $22.90 inclusive of shipping, they should come soldered and ready to use.
This product works as described, however, do NOT unplug the stepper while the board and stepper are powered! It will fry the chip because there is no protection built in for the back EMF. I learned this the hard way. This could also potentially be an issue if the motor stalls, but I haven't tested that.
Power and control lines are easy to use. I don't have to know anything about stepper motors to use them.Only minor change is that I would move the MS1 and MS2 motor speed controls together on the board for ease of wiring.
On my home PC, I use an app, Driver Easy, which analyzes the unit's hardware, and determines if there are any driver updates. Then you can instruct the app to download any or all drivers and update them. It works really well on my home PC. So I installed it on my TravelMate TMB311R-32, ran the application, and updated the drivers.
Since there are so few chips (individual hardware systems), OEM drivers unique to those chips are critical and probably not like the individual chips/boards normally found. Regardless, this might help others in similar situations.
You shouldn't be using Driver Easy software's at all, you don't need this software, plus you are wasting $29.95 per year?, as this software does more damage than improve anything. Your Travel Mate TMB311R-32 notebook is an Intel based notebook and all you need is windows update for Win-11 to update this notebook and for unavailable drivers like bios, touchpad, card reader, audio you can get all these drivers from the official Acer TMB311R-32 at Drivers & Manuals but the main software is to install Intel Driver & Support Assistant and do a scan with this software, as this official Intel driver software will keep your Intel graphics up to date and the Wi-Fi/BT drivers up to date that change regularly and all chipset etc for a new notebook to operate properly and to be up to date, don't waste your money on Driver Easy as this software will cause problems like you have had with your TMB311R-32-C31R continually.
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