Stepper motor use of millis () instead of delay ()

Support Motor controllers/drivers and motors
1

I have a small dilemma. I have code that runs a stepper motor using the A4988 chip and I would like to use millis () instead of delay () as it interferes with the usb read. I would like to move 400 steps in one direction.
Here’s the code

steps = 400

for (int s = 0; s < steps; s++){
  digitalWrite( STEP_PIN, HIGH);                  
  delayMicroseconds (375);                        
  digitalWrite( STEP_PIN, LOW); 
  delay (2);  
}
2

Hello.

Since you are using delayMicroseconds(), you should use micros() instead of millis(). Here is an example of how you could implement your delays without using the delay functions:

const byte STEP_PIN = 5;
int steps; 
unsigned long time_a;
unsigned long time_b;

void setup() {
  steps = 400;
}

void loop() {
  for (int s = 0; s < steps; s++){
    time_a = micros();
    digitalWrite(STEP_PIN, HIGH);                       
    while(micros() - time_a < 375){
    // do nothing
    }
    time_b = micros();    
    digitalWrite(STEP_PIN, LOW);
    while(micros() - time_b < 2000){
    // do nothing
    }
  }
 while(1);
}

-Jon

3

Thank you, Jonathan.

I was looking for non-blocking code and that is why I was thinking of using millis() instead of delays.

4

You might also look into this AccelStepper Arduino library, which supports non-blocking operations.

-Jon