Running Steppers and Servo from Adafruit motor shield

Development Boards Arduino
1

Hi

  • I’m working with an Arduino and the Adafruit motor shield v2. I’ve got two steppers and a servo hooked up and a working 12 volt power supply, but after a few turns of the stepper motor, my voltage drops down in the 2.5V range and the shield stops working for a few minutes. None of the chips seem to be over heating though. Any ideas?

Here are the steppers and the servo:

stepper- https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10846

servo- http://www.adafruit.com/products/1143

Thanks,

Kyle

2

Motor draws 1.7A per phase. Shield can provide up to 1.2 amps. Seems like you have a 0.5 amp problem.

3

The problem is worse than that. The motor draws 1.7 amps/phase at 3 volts. At 12 volts, that would be 6.8 amps/phase. In fact, the 3 V specification is the maximum allowed steady state voltage. The motor cannot be driven with a higher steady state voltage without overheating. Chopper drivers are required for such motors.

4

Thank you guys. I’ll look into good chopper drivers