The Cheapest way to control a Stepper Motor with an Arduino. But is it any good?

[@tuber4tuber]

Thanks for the great video Yvan. I went to your web site to get the correct spelling of your name and just now learnt that you closed your store. I understand your reasons. Thanks for the great service you provided in the past. It was really convenient to have you just one major city to the east of me.

[@BrainybitsCanada]

Thanks for watching Scott. I loved having the store, at the time it was hard getting parts for projects, which is why I started it, but with time the competition grew (Amazon) and it just wasn't viable anymore :) But it was a great experience for sure! Good luck with your projects. Cheers!

[@joshfixesall4056]

I had great results with A4988 The driver you are using uses a Dual H Bridge, which means each channel can reverse also, which is overkill for a stepper and is a not needed feature which takes up more space in the package you're not using. A4988 simply is designed for stepper motors.

[@barathv9910]

Hi iam having problems with A4988 driver.simultaneous motion or motors is not possible. Is there anyway to do it?

[@joshfixesall4056]

@@barathv9910 I don't believe I understand the situation. Search for tutorials on the A4988 stepper driver IC, it's very simple and you only need to pulse 2 pins with very simple code to move or choose direction of the stepper motor. I used the same stepper motor as used in the video, the NEMA

[@barathv9910]

@@joshfixesall4056 yes, I can move a single motor with A4988.i want to run 2 steppers simultaneously with a4988 using Accel stepper library

[@joshfixesall4056]

@@barathv9910 that's a no-go, brother. A4988 is designed for single stepper motors that's why there is 4 outputs. If you mean parallel then the current may be too high for the small driver .

[@barathv9910]

@@joshfixesall4056 yes,I have connected 2 A4988 in parallel

[@gnzngonzio]

Nice one !! , excellent tip about the code line for cut the power and avoid overheating. 👍

[@alagarramanujam5461]

Nice ! works well!! , excellent tip about the code line for cut the power and avoid overheating. Please share me code for 2 stepper motors speed control using one joystick and 2+2 limit switches.

[@PhG1961]

I've been using the L-298 for over 30 years ! The module with the L-298 you're showing, is of course more recent. The reason why I like it so much is because it's straight forward and cheap. For me, the 'no current' limitation is perfect. Many times I used it to it's max. performance and it does the job rather well. However, I used much lager cooling elements (custom made PCB) to avoid thermal shut down. In that way, you can use it easily for continuous stall with amps above 1.6A

[@PhG1961]

Great video btw. Let's see more of that !

[@BrainybitsCanada]

Thanks for sharing your experience with the L298. A lot of people just dismiss it as being terrible, but it does have it's uses and adding more cooling like you said can make it better. Cheers!

[@jakegarrett8109]

Haha, I have one of mine water cooled, lol! You can see the L298N waterblock mount/housing on Thingiverse under my “Penny waterblock” design (which as the name implies, does indeed use a US copper penny for the coldplate, sanded flat of course (which I’ve used in my water cooled tablet as the main render example, and these are real of course I just never updated with the actual photos since the renders I could make transparent so you could better see how they worked). I’m not sure on the max current possible as the most O was driving were like 1 inch diameter and 2 inch long DC motors on a tank track robot test platform (small, the chassis was about a 16x18inch oil cooler radiator), so the motors never seemed to stall with 4 driving it.

[@jakegarrett8109]

@Sheps Thanks Sheps!

[@wolfrobots118]

Only use l298 if you want to melt it or catch it on fire if used with a stepper motor..... If you use a stepper for more than 20 or 30 seconds it will start to overheat the module. Get the t6600 stepper motor driver for stepper motors of this size.

[@Ed19601]

Great video. "The easy driver doesnt need a heatsink, butvyou should install one anyway because it can become very hot" So that's kinda like the L298 :-) The current limiting you speak about is a bit odd. The board doesn't pump more current through motor than it requires at its operating voltage. Limiting the current will unavoidably lead to a voltage drop and drop the power/torque of the motor. If you would need this to avoid your motor 'getting hot if you leave it on for long' you ha e picked the wrong motor for the job. The only reason I can see for the current limiting is to avoid a burn out of your motor in case it gets overloaded or stuck.

[@filipfusion]

Hi ! Is there a way to use a potentiometer instead ?

[@vasyapupken]

if stepper motor datasheet says it draws X amps that doesn't mean you need a 2X amp driver. yes there is two phase coils inside the motor but they NEVER get max current at the same time. X amp motor -> X amp driver.

[@muratcanbarut64]

Amazing video Yvan , ı wish you have answered old videos comments as well . the absolute rotary encoder video, library should be 1.7.0 , otherwise doesnt work, and LCD connection different than I2C ! thank you

[@charlieharris5254]

Hi Ivan with a stepper motor I want to drive via a gear a module along a tube. Like 3D printer etc. Want 4 set positions for the motor to run to, then select 1 of 4 buttons to go to that position. In any order without returning to home position. Do you have a video or code that does that or nearly that? Thanks CharlesHarris

[@aydinlucaz6249]

Amazing video Yvan. Helps a lot. I was wondering if it is possible to make the 2-axis slider that you made previously with a L298N driver? If yes, how?

[@BrainybitsCanada]

I would no use the L298 for that, Since I would want more steps capabilities to make the movement smooth. I will be making more tutorials using other stepper drivers that are better for this soon. Stay tuned. Thanks for watching btw. Cheers!

[@aydinlucaz6249]

Brainy-Bits I was aware of that, but I am making a similar project that doesn’t need very smooth movements. I am trying to mount a light on a 2-axis motor system. I have tried recoding your code to work with the L298N, but it doesn’t seem to work. Do you know how this works?

[@BrainybitsCanada]

Well the L298 needs 4 pins, so you would need at least 8 pins to drive 2 steppers. In the code you would need to change the AccelStepper to use the L298: AccelStepper stepperX(4, 2, 3, 4, 5); // 4 = 4 wire interface // UNO Pin 2 connected to IN 1 of L298 // UNO Pin 3 connected to IN 2 of L298 // UNO Pin 4 connected to IN 3 of L298 // UNO Pin 5 connected to IN 4 of L298 AccelStepper stepperX(4, 6, 7, 8, 9); // 4 = 4 wire interface // UNO Pin 6 connected to IN 1 of L298 // UNO Pin 7 connected to IN 2 of L298 // UNO Pin 8 connected to IN 3 of L298 // UNO Pin 9 connected to IN 4 of L298 Something like that, but of course the code might use some of those pins already for other things, so you would have to adjust accordingly... Hope that helps...

[@andrewmack4830]

interesting. Thank you. Keep the videos coming

[@sameerk12982]

Great tutorial...very helpful and informative....

[@michaelcostello6991]

Does it work with a unipolar stepper motor 5 wire

[@pedropauloparaizomatos2705]

Já montei e ficou show !

[@gurumultitask9979]

Please make with Lcd to control rpm

[@barathv9910]

Hi the codes which u uploaded in ur page for the camera slider is not working. The motor does not move at all. It's stationary.

[@BrainybitsCanada]

Hard to say why it wouldn't work, I've uploaded the code from the website to my Uno and it does work. Maybe check your connections to make sure...?

[@barathv9910]

@@BrainybitsCanada oh okk I'll check iam using A4988.i have the similar connections as your easy driver. Is there any change I need to make while using A4988 driver.

[@BrainybitsCanada]

The A4988 uses only 2 pins (step and direction) unlike the L298 which needs 4. So in the code you would need to change the StepperDriverType to 1 and the AccelStepper line to reflect the 2 pins.: #define StepperDriverType 1 AccelStepper stepper(StepperDriverType, pinSTEP, pinDIR); Hope that helps, but I've done tutorials using the EasyDriver which uses the same Arduino Code pretty much, you might want to check those out if you're still having problems. Cheers!

[@barathv9910]

@@BrainybitsCanada ok I will try and post my code here.

[@barathv9910]

#include AccelStepper stepper1 = AccelStepper(1, 3, 4); AccelStepper stepper2 = AccelStepper(1, 12, 13); int nos; int noos; void setup() { stepper1.setMaxSpeed(2000); stepper2.setMaxSpeed(2000); Serial.begin(9600); } void loop() { while (Serial.available()>0) { Serial.println("enter nos"); nos = Serial.parseInt(); noos = Serial.parseInt(); stepper1.moveTo(nos); stepper1.runToPosition(); stepper2.moveTo(noos); stepper2.runToPosition(); } this is my code,here after one motor stops the other moves. how can i make it to move simultaneously? }

[@williamkavanagh9734]

awesome! and on the edge of my seat for the shield! , i am using a cnc shield with grbl and 4 stepper motors for a cnc project. however i’d love to learn to use the shield without grbl to do custom movements or independently move 4 axis with joysticks etc. thanks!

[@sidharthap]

What's your opinion on the new Arduino Pro IDE ( blog.arduino.cc/2019/10/18/arduino-pro-ide-alpha-preview-with-advanced-features/ )?

[@BrainybitsCanada]

Haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I will put it on my list of things to review in the next year... Stay tuned and thank you for watching!

[@salvatorebarbaro5862]

// works but has some flaws // arduino doesn't have to do anything else because the single steps take place at each loop cycle, therefore also dependent on the clock frequency of the type of arduino used // the potentiometer must be linear to have a good stroke length, otherwise too rapid acceleration will cause the motor to lose steps 'read stepper motor acceleration curve'

[@driversteve9345]

I just subscribed to your channel but I'm wondering why the headless/faceless body shot? Do you work for the CIA? LoL!

[@wolfrobots118]

Also this is not recommended to use for a separate murder even for a simple project it should never ever be used for a stepper motor... They whoever they are should stop advertising that it can be used for stepper motors because that makes it very dangerous.