Hello!
Looking to drive 2x https://www.pololu.com/product/1208 stepper motors. I have an arduino uno controlling everything. What I can’t figure out is the Pro/Con to using a driver https://www.pololu.com/category/120/stepper-motor-drivers
vs using a controller
https://www.pololu.com/category/212/tic-stepper-motor-controllers
I would like to be able to operate them both as cheaply as possible. Any recommendations appreciated!
Thank you
-Ross
Hello, Ross.
Using two of our stepper motor drivers will be the most inexpensive option, but the setup work to get your stepper motors working will likely be longer and more difficult than if you use our Tic stepper motor controllers since the Tics allow you to configure various control aspects like the current limit, stepping mode, acceleration/deceleration limits, and more over USB using our Tic Control Center software. The Tics can also be controlled by higher level interfaces, like I2C and Serial, that support daisy-chaining devices which could free up I/O pins on your Arduino. Also, if you use one of those interfaces, for the most part you will only need to send the Tic target velocity or position commands, and the Tic will take care of generating the STEP pulses that make the integrated driver work, so that will free up your Arduino’s processing resources to focus on other things.
- Patrick
