EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Electronics => Mechanical & Automation Engineering => Topic started by: cdev on January 25, 2022, 09:43:25 pm
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I want to learn a bit about motor control ad want to buyseveral motor controllers for general use to use with my raspberry pi or perhaps other stuff and I want to get some inexpensive motor control board. My first project I think will be some kind of antenna rotator or az-el mount.. Bluntly, I am a rank beginner. Hoping to just learn the basics of moving stuff with motors. Very simple control of motion.
Another project I'd like to tackle eventually is motorizing my ( drilling) x-y table for drilling holes in PCBs in a neater manner.
I am on a tight budget though.
So I want to buy at least two motor control boards on ebay that I can use to move stuff. And perhaps standardize on. I have no idea which one(s) to buy. I have a couple of four wired steppers that I have removed from old hardware, and a couple of other old unused devices that contain steppers I'd like to fool around with, a printer and fax machine..
but the control board(s) that I get first I hope will be ones that I can use to interface to a wide variety of small motors as a learning platform, not spending much on them at all.
Where would you start to do this?
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Get some A4988 modules, they are super cheap.
https://whatibroke.com/2019/08/10/a4988-stepper-motor-raspberrypi/ (https://whatibroke.com/2019/08/10/a4988-stepper-motor-raspberrypi/)
You can directly hook them up to the pi, but, I think just buying a 3D printer type board and running GRBL on it would be easier.
Example, don't know if its any good: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003511625068.html (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003511625068.html)
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Be sure to get a positional encoder as well. Stepper motors may miss steps under varying load.
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If you want to control DC motors, I suggest L293D dual DC motor driver. This is the simplest type of motor controller that I've ever come across. https://www.etechnophiles.com/l293d-motor-driver-module-ic-datasheet-pinouts/ (https://www.etechnophiles.com/l293d-motor-driver-module-ic-datasheet-pinouts/)
There is another L293D based motor shield. This one can control DC, stepper and servo: https://kuongshun.com/products/l293d-motor-driver-board (https://kuongshun.com/products/l293d-motor-driver-board)
You can also control DC motors using Labview. Here is a tutorial if you are interested: https://www.theengineeringprojects.com/2020/12/dc-motor-control-using-myrio.html (https://www.theengineeringprojects.com/2020/12/dc-motor-control-using-myrio.html)