Quick points about this motor & driver
They are wonderfully cheap and extremely accurate due to 1/64 gearing. They move by 0.087890625° per step! However, the gearing is made of plastic and will wear out overtime, especially if moving heavy objects. Lastly the motors can become a little toasty if you work them hard.
Circuit
Code
#!/usr/bin/python3 import RPi.GPIO as GPIO import time in1 = 17 in2 = 18 in3 = 27 in4 = 22 # careful lowering this, at some point you run into the mechanical limitation of how quick your motor can move step_sleep = 0.002 step_count = 4096 # 5.625*(1/64) per step, 4096 steps is 360° direction = False # True for clockwise, False for counter-clockwise # defining stepper motor sequence (found in documentation http://www.4tronix.co.uk/arduino/Stepper-Motors.php) step_sequence = [[1,0,0,1], [1,0,0,0], [1,1,0,0], [0,1,0,0], [0,1,1,0], [0,0,1,0], [0,0,1,1], [0,0,0,1]] # setting up GPIO.setmode( GPIO.BCM ) GPIO.setup( in1, GPIO.OUT ) GPIO.setup( in2, GPIO.OUT ) GPIO.setup( in3, GPIO.OUT ) GPIO.setup( in4, GPIO.OUT ) # initializing GPIO.output( in1, GPIO.LOW ) GPIO.output( in2, GPIO.LOW ) GPIO.output( in3, GPIO.LOW ) GPIO.output( in4, GPIO.LOW ) motor_pins = [in1,in2,in3,in4] motor_step_counter = 0 ; def cleanup(): GPIO.output( in1, GPIO.LOW ) GPIO.output( in2, GPIO.LOW ) GPIO.output( in3, GPIO.LOW ) GPIO.output( in4, GPIO.LOW ) GPIO.cleanup() # the meat try: i = 0 for i in range(step_count): for pin in range(0, len(motor_pins)): GPIO.output( motor_pins[pin], step_sequence[motor_step_counter][pin] ) if direction==True: motor_step_counter = (motor_step_counter - 1) % 8 elif direction==False: motor_step_counter = (motor_step_counter + 1) % 8 else: # defensive programming print( "uh oh... direction should *always* be either True or False" ) cleanup() exit( 1 ) time.sleep( step_sleep ) except KeyboardInterrupt: cleanup() exit( 1 ) cleanup() exit( 0 )
Stuff you might need for this to run:
sudo apt-get update --fix-missing && sudo apt-get install python3-rpi.gpio
Results
This motor takes 5.625*(1/64)° per step, this means 2048 steps for 180°:
and 4096 steps for 360°:
One thing that is super cool about the driver board are the LEDs. Projects are always cooler with blinky LEDs, but these guys also help show what is actually going on inside the stepper, and can help you find issues. They are supposed to light up in sequence.
It’s one of the first time I read a tutorial, really “ready to use”.
I just followed your diagram, copy/past your script, and it works !
Congrats and thank you 🙂
C’est tellement la lutte pour trouver des informations succinctes et précises sur ce genre de sujet, j’essaye vraiment de poster des infos qui sont les deux. Merci de laisser un commentaire pour me faire savoir que c’est réussi :).
Thank you. This article was clear and concise. It explained very well how the motor works with Raspberry pi. It is exactly what I was looking for.