Feather motor driver erratic

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morrisford
 
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Joined: Wed May 09, 2012 6:08 pm

Feather motor driver erratic

Post by morrisford »

I have a motor driver/wifi feather stack. I am working with a stepper motor. I have a sketch that simply rotates the stepper in one direction then the the same number of steps in the other direction. The backward move works ok, the forward does not. I have tried step counts up and down from 1 to 100 with the same result.

Here is the sketch#include <Wire.h>
#include <Adafruit_MotorShield.h>

Adafruit_MotorShield AFMS = Adafruit_MotorShield(0x61);
Adafruit_StepperMotor *myMotor = AFMS.getStepper(200, 1);

void setup()
{
Serial.begin(9600); // set up Serial library at 9600 bps
Serial.println("Stepper test!");
AFMS.begin(); // create with the default frequency 1.6KHz
myMotor->setSpeed(20); // 10 rpm
}

void loop()
{
Serial.println("Loop");
myMotor->step(10, BACKWARD, DOUBLE);
delay(1000);
myMotor->step(10, FORWARD, DOUBLE);
delay(2000);
Serial.println("End");
}

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Feather motor driver erratic

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

What stepper motor are you using? And how are you powering it?

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morrisford
 
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Re: Feather motor driver erratic

Post by morrisford »

The stepper is from adafruit.
Thanks for responding. Considering that there are no markings on the steppers to verify what they are, all I have is docs from Adafruit.

Here is the email confirmation:
-----------------------------------------------------
2 x Stepper motor - NEMA-17 size - 200 steps/rev, 12V 350mA[ID:324] = $28.00
------------------------------------------------------
Sub-Total: $28.00
United Parcel Service (1 pkg x 1.08 lbs total) (UPS GROUND): $11.67
Sales Tax: $1.96
Total: $41.63

I am powering it with a variable dc supply and have tested from 5v to 14v and it acts the same. As the next test I was going to change to the other stepper connection on the feather. In the next few minutes I will be ordering a new feather motor board. Also, the motor feather is mounted on a wifi wing so I will see about a different type of wing for testing. I have a couple of radio wings so I may try one of those.

One strange thing is that I have an adafruit arduino motor board that failed in this same fashion. That was the target configuration for what I am doing but I switched to the feather pieces to try to figure out what was wrong. There is really only the usb connection to my Mac in common between the two configurations. Different power supply.

Morris

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Feather motor driver erratic

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

2 x Stepper motor - NEMA-17 size - 200 steps/rev, 12V 350mA[ID:324] = $28.00
Do both motors behave the same way? Please post some photos showing all your connections.

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morrisford
 
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Re: Feather motor driver erratic

Post by morrisford »

I have been doing testing and such. I connected the two adafruit steppers to the motor board and one worked, the one that had not been connected since I got it. I now have a motor board that will run one stepper. The stepper that would not run correctly still won't. I will be doing some more testing but I have taken too much time switching steppers and boards. I have a wifi board/ motor board/ stepper that works so for the rest of the little project I'm just going run with what I currently have working.
One issue that I am still wondering about is that during the early testing of board and stepping I was using a power supply at nominally 12V but I later checked and it was actually 14V. This is a supply that I use to run ham radio. I am currently using a different supply that is set at 9.75V.

Morris

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Feather motor driver erratic

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

The TB6612 drivers on the board are rated for 13.5v in normal operation. 14v could be a problem - especially if there is a power-on voltage spike as with many supplies.

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