I just ordered this stepper motor from jameco:
https://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/store … llDownView
I wish I could use it with the easy driver from Sparkfun, but I don’t think I can because my motor pulls more than that driver’s amp rating, and it’s unipolar not bipolar. Can anyone suggest another driver I could use instead? Thanks!
Alicia
You can use an adafruit motor shield and stack the L293D’s. See this post here:
http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.ph … ck#p106121
Tboy
aliciaeggert:
I wish I could use it with the easy driver from Sparkfun, but I don’t think I can because my motor pulls more than that driver’s amp rating, and it’s unipolar not bipolar. Can anyone suggest another driver I could use instead? Thanks!
You can use an Easydriver to drive that motor. You will not be able to achieve the full torque that it can provide but it will certainly be usable.
The motor you bought is a 6 wire unipolar motor which can be wired to run with a bipolar driver. Using the colors that are in the datasheet, tie back and insulate the yellow and white wires. Connect black and green wires to the OUT 1A and OUT 1B channels. Connect the red and blue wires to the OUT 2A and OUT 2B channels. Now it will run just like a bipolar motor!
-Bill
Thank you both for your very helpful posts! I think I will actually combine your advice - run the motor as if it’s unipolar, and drive it from two stacked L293D’s.
Thanks again!
Alicia
One thing you will have to keep in mind is if you plan on using microstepping, it’s handled internally on the Easydriver so you don’t have to think about it but the Adafruit solution with the L293Ds would require you to generate the necessary PWM signals and keep track of phasing on your own.
-bill
I’m using the Stepper Motor Driver v3.3 from MakerBot for my project, it supports up to a 35V motor @ 2A! $39 a piece though, sorta high.