I have a Johnson Saia UBL 4 wire linear stepper motor that is part of my xenon headlights. I’m looking to adjust the motor from the engine bay and I’m thinking the Big Easy Driver is my solution. Can I hook up switches to the step and Direction inputs and be done? I don’t want logic or other boards. I’d like to configure the board, make connectors to the motor and my 12v battery, connect switches and be done. Possible?
No, lots more to it. For one, the BED might not even work with your motor.
Stepper motors don’t just run when you apply power, you have to supply the correct number of “steps” in the correct order to get the motor to move. How far the motor goes depends on how many steps you’ve sent and direction depends on what order the motor coils get energized.
At a minimum, you’d need a micro controller attached to the BED to feed it commands. You could use a simple switch to change direction, but a switch wouldn’t work for making the motor move without some help from a microcontroller.
The microcontroller would need to be programmed to send a specific number of pulses to the BED to get the stepper motor to move the right amount. I suppose you could do it with a button, but it might take hundreds or even thousands of presses to fully open or close your headlight. You’d need to find how many steps it takes experimentally and then write code that moves that many steps.
Very important: the Big Easy Driver MUST be able to handle the current drawn by your motor. Post a link to the motor specs.