My objective is to make my stepper motor spin 1/20 of a revolution (18 degrees = 10 steps) every time I click a virtual button on the screen.
I suppose I can either produce a well defined series of pulses (5V) as input for my current stepper motor driver, which in turn will energize the motor, or use a different driver altogether which will be commanded by USB and energize the motor.
Maximum phase current is 0.4A (my experience shows that lower current may be better).
Any recommendations regarding hardware and software (for controlling the hardware, including simple GUI)?
As you mentioned, there are probably many ways you could go about doing something like that. Using one of our Tic USB Stepper Motor Controllers would allow you to control your stepper motor over USB like you mentioned. We do not have a specific example for doing what you described, so you would have to write your own software. The “Writing PC software to control the Tic” section of the Tic controller’s user’s guide is probably a good place to start.
Hi BrandonM,
I have it almost completely figured out. I got a Tic T500 controller and connected it successfully to the stepper motor. After some trials I got it spinning continuously and then made it spin and stop exactly as required (10 steps = 18 degrees) using the Tic standard GUI.
Next, I made it do exactly what I need using the CMD prompt (ticcmd…) , so for the next stage I compiled the exact same series of CMD lines in a batch file (*.bat) in order to run it by a single double-click. For some reason, the motor responds differently to the batch file; it spins and stops after a different number of steps, and more strangely, it doesn’t seem to repeat the exact same pattern when prompted time after time.
Any idea or useful advice?
Thanks,
Could you post your batch file and your Tic settings file? You can save your Tic settings file by selecting the “Save settings file…” option within the “File” drop-down menu in the Tic Control Center.
