Controlling 2 Steppers with only 4 lines of a PORT

[Drugly]

l297 l6203

Yet another question, hope it doesnt bother you.


I'm using two stepper motors, the pulses needed for making the stepper work are given by the microcontroller. But, with four lines of each stepper, using two steppers will occupy a whole port (8 bits).

Is there any way that i can use only 4 bits and use the two steppers? They are never turn on at the same time.

 

[dika]

l297 l6203

why don't you use an external driver?

use a 555 as the clock generator, a shift register to shift the pulse and two current driver (293 or 298, i forgot which one) for each motor

use 2 pin for direction (forward/reverse) and 2 pin for on/off, connect it to the shift register

 

[Geri]

Hello Drugly

Controlling a stepper motor can be done with two IOs of a micro controller. One signal is used for the clock (step) and one IO for the direction.

Ther are many stepper motor drivers generating the signals for the stepper motor on the market. A very easy one is the L297 combined with L298 oder two L6203. You will also find a lot of examples on the internet.

Good controlling of a stepper motor would also have an enable/disable line for reducing the current if the stepper motors do not work.

A stepper could also be controlled with four transistors, two resistors and a transistor driver e.g. 74LS245 but this way is not very efficient way.

Best regards

Geri

 

[Drugly]

Thanks!

Well, to my knowledge, the L297 combined with L298 will provide the pulses required for the stepper, in the order from 1 to 4. Of course, this only works for steppers that only require one pulse at a time, but what about steppers like this one that require 2 pulses at a time?

h**p://www.myhurst.com/hurstmfg/qseries.jsp?series=Series+PAS%2C+PBS+Geared+Stepping+Motor