Driving 6 stepper motors from Arduino

[Andy Hayward]

So as to stop double guessing myself ...

I need to drive 6 stepper motors from a (preferred) single Arduino for a project. Any reason I shouldn't just use one of the many 6 axis 3d printer boards (e.g. Rumba, or cheaper knockoff)?

http://www.reprapdiscount.com/electronics/33-rumba-basic-board.html

[Alex Gibson]

No reason at all why not.  I have used RUMBA and it’s well integrated.

 

Do you intend to use GCODE to drive it, or to write an Arduino sketch?

 

The Marlin 3D printer firmware would be a good choice in either case, even if writing your own, you can see its pin assignments and use them to drive the stepping.

 

Cheers

Alex

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[Eric Rowen]

Not cheaper but better, try the Duet WiFi or wired Duet Ethernet, with a daughter board can drive that many steppers. 

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[Alex Gibson]

The key advantage of the Duet board is its 32-bit processor.  This is a differentiator if the robot needs to make complex arcing moves – for this reason it is popular in Delta 3d printers.

If more straightforward linear/rotary motion is required, and 8-bit processors will do, rumba is more compact and a lot cheaper.  (You need to add the stepper drivers to the price)

 

From: reading-...@googlegroups.com [mailto:reading-...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Eric Rowen
Sent: 14 August 2017 10:49
To: reading-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [RDG-Hack] Driving 6 stepper motors from Arduino

 

Not cheaper but better, try the Duet WiFi or wired Duet Ethernet, with a daughter board can drive that many steppers. 

On Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 4:51 AM, Andy Hayward <a...@buteo.org> wrote:

So as to stop double guessing myself ...

 

I need to drive 6 stepper motors from a (preferred) single Arduino for a project. Any reason I shouldn't just use one of the many 6 axis 3d printer boards (e.g. Rumba, or cheaper knockoff)?

 

http://www.reprapdiscount.com/electronics/33-rumba-basic-board.html

 

 

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[Richard Ibbotson]

I pure hardware terms, then there is no problem with this board. The stepper drivers only need their enable, step, direction pins and the Mega256 processor has enough ports for this and more.

 

However, I doubt you would ask this question if it is just for a simple 3D printer application with 3 or 4 geometry motors and a few extruders.

 

If you are looking at an application with a more complex geometry then you should make more consideration of the processor and available firmware and libraries. If you your motion is complex, but not very demanding of synchronisation, then you might get away with an Arduino sketch, however if your motion requires accurate synchronised moves over 6 degrees of freedom, then both the robot motion engine, and any trajectory planning make much bigger processor demands.

 

The robot and planning code in grbl and Marlin is amazing, but highly optimised and limited to simple geometries.

 

Be interested to hear more of your project.

 

Richard

 

 

From: ach...@gmail.com [mailto:ach...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Andy Hayward

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[Andy Hayward]

This is for the arduino driven clock I posted a few months ago; 3 VID28-05 clock units (2 stepper motors per clock).

However these only require 20ma; so I may get away with driving directly from an arduino without stepper drivers. Should probably add diodes for protection.

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[Andy Hayward]

Datasheet attached.

On Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 11:00 AM, Andy Hayward <a...@buteo.org> wrote:

This is for the arduino driven clock I posted a few months ago; 3 VID28-05 clock units (2 stepper motors per clock).

However these only require 20ma; so I may get away with driving directly from an arduino without stepper drivers. Should probably add diodes for protection.

[Andy Noyes]

Are they unipolar motors? What about 3x 74HC595 shift registers and a bunch of transistors, drive them all from one arduino pin and you could probably even manage some current limiting PWM.

Those boards seem like overkill to me, but I always prefer the lowest-level solution.

On Monday, 14 August 2017 18:00:03 UTC+1, Andy Hayward wrote:

This is for the arduino driven clock I posted a few months ago; 3 VID28-05 clock units (2 stepper motors per clock).

However these only require 20ma; so I may get away with driving directly from an arduino without stepper drivers. Should probably add diodes for protection.

On Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 5:05 AM, Richard Ibbotson <richard....@btinternet.com> wrote:

I pure hardware terms, then there is no problem with this board. The stepper drivers only need their enable, step, direction pins and the Mega256 processor has enough ports for this and more.

 

However, I doubt you would ask this question if it is just for a simple 3D printer application with 3 or 4 geometry motors and a few extruders.

 

If you are looking at an application with a more complex geometry then you should make more consideration of the processor and available firmware and libraries. If you your motion is complex, but not very demanding of synchronisation, then you might get away with an Arduino sketch, however if your motion requires accurate synchronised moves over 6 degrees of freedom, then both the robot motion engine, and any trajectory planning make much bigger processor demands.

 

The robot and planning code in grbl and Marlin is amazing, but highly optimised and limited to simple geometries.

 

Be interested to hear more of your project.

 

Richard

 

 

From: ach...@gmail.com [mailto:ach...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Andy Hayward
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2017 4:52 AM
To: Reading Hackspace <reading-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [RDG-Hack] Driving 6 stepper motors from Arduino

 

So as to stop double guessing myself ...

 

I need to drive 6 stepper motors from a (preferred) single Arduino for a project. Any reason I shouldn't just use one of the many 6 axis 3d printer boards (e.g. Rumba, or cheaper knockoff)?

 

http://www.reprapdiscount.com/electronics/33-rumba-basic-board.html

 

 

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[Andy Noyes]

... bipolar. Then you will need a bunch more transistors (or H bridge drivers).

On Monday, 14 August 2017 18:28:20 UTC+1, Andy Hayward wrote:

Datasheet attached.

On Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 11:00 AM, Andy Hayward <a...@buteo.org> wrote:

This is for the arduino driven clock I posted a few months ago; 3 VID28-05 clock units (2 stepper motors per clock).

However these only require 20ma; so I may get away with driving directly from an arduino without stepper drivers. Should probably add diodes for protection.

On Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 5:05 AM, Richard Ibbotson <richard....@btinternet.com> wrote:

I pure hardware terms, then there is no problem with this board. The stepper drivers only need their enable, step, direction pins and the Mega256 processor has enough ports for this and more.

 

However, I doubt you would ask this question if it is just for a simple 3D printer application with 3 or 4 geometry motors and a few extruders.

 

If you are looking at an application with a more complex geometry then you should make more consideration of the processor and available firmware and libraries. If you your motion is complex, but not very demanding of synchronisation, then you might get away with an Arduino sketch, however if your motion requires accurate synchronised moves over 6 degrees of freedom, then both the robot motion engine, and any trajectory planning make much bigger processor demands.

 

The robot and planning code in grbl and Marlin is amazing, but highly optimised and limited to simple geometries.

 

Be interested to hear more of your project.

 

Richard

 

 

From: ach...@gmail.com [mailto:ach...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Andy Hayward
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2017 4:52 AM
To: Reading Hackspace <reading-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [RDG-Hack] Driving 6 stepper motors from Arduino

 

So as to stop double guessing myself ...

 

I need to drive 6 stepper motors from a (preferred) single Arduino for a project. Any reason I shouldn't just use one of the many 6 axis 3d printer boards (e.g. Rumba, or cheaper knockoff)?

 

http://www.reprapdiscount.com/electronics/33-rumba-basic-board.html

 

 

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[Richard Ibbotson]

Yes, they should drive direct from the Arduino.

They do suggest microstepping for better performance.

Maybe get them hooked up direct and do some experiments.

 

If you want microstepping, there seems to be a chip: VID6066

http://guy.carpenter.id.au/gaugette/resources/vid/2009111391612_VID6606%20manual%20060927.pdf

 

Available on AliExpress

 

Richard

 

 

From: ach...@gmail.com [mailto:ach...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Andy Hayward

Sent: Monday, August 14, 2017 6:00 PM
To: Reading Hackspace <reading-...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: [RDG-Hack] Driving 6 stepper motors from Arduino

 

This is for the arduino driven clock I posted a few months ago; 3 VID28-05 clock units (2 stepper motors per clock).

 

However these only require 20ma; so I may get away with driving directly from an arduino without stepper drivers. Should probably add diodes for protection.

 

On Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 5:05 AM, Richard Ibbotson <richard....@btinternet.com> wrote:

I pure hardware terms, then there is no problem with this board. The stepper drivers only need their enable, step, direction pins and the Mega256 processor has enough ports for this and more.

 

However, I doubt you would ask this question if it is just for a simple 3D printer application with 3 or 4 geometry motors and a few extruders.

 

If you are looking at an application with a more complex geometry then you should make more consideration of the processor and available firmware and libraries. If you your motion is complex, but not very demanding of synchronisation, then you might get away with an Arduino sketch, however if your motion requires accurate synchronised moves over 6 degrees of freedom, then both the robot motion engine, and any trajectory planning make much bigger processor demands.

 

The robot and planning code in grbl and Marlin is amazing, but highly optimised and limited to simple geometries.

 

Be interested to hear more of your project.

 

Richard

 

 

From: ach...@gmail.com [mailto:ach...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Andy Hayward
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2017 4:52 AM
To: Reading Hackspace <reading-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [RDG-Hack] Driving 6 stepper motors from Arduino

 

So as to stop double guessing myself ...

 

I need to drive 6 stepper motors from a (preferred) single Arduino for a project. Any reason I shouldn't just use one of the many 6 axis 3d printer boards (e.g. Rumba, or cheaper knockoff)?

 

http://www.reprapdiscount.com/electronics/33-rumba-basic-boardhtml

 

 

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