07-12-2020, 14:53
(This post was last modified: 07-12-2020, 14:54 by aml_joseph.)
Hi mega8825,
Welcome to the AML Forums! Our D42.3 motors are NEMA 17 (42 mm x 42 mm) size and are bipolar, meaning that they have 4 lead-out wires the same as your current stepper motor; from what I can see.
Your current stepper motor drive should be able to drive our D42.3 motor if it can drive your Usongshine motor, but it may not be best suited. While driving a stepper motor in vacuum you need to minimise the amount of power dissipated in the motor, in order to slow down temperature rise. Without knowing what stepper motor drive you’re currently using it’s impossible to comment on if it’s suitable for driving a UHV stepper motor. You’d need to check the datasheet of the stepper motor drive and our stepper motor datasheet to check that they are compatible.
To answer your question about driving a D42.3 stepper motor with an Arduino, you could use one of our SMD3 Stepper Motor Drives. Depending how much control of the drive parameters you require there are several options to consider. Please note that none of these methods have been officially tested and are informal suggestions to help you get started:
Welcome to the AML Forums! Our D42.3 motors are NEMA 17 (42 mm x 42 mm) size and are bipolar, meaning that they have 4 lead-out wires the same as your current stepper motor; from what I can see.
Your current stepper motor drive should be able to drive our D42.3 motor if it can drive your Usongshine motor, but it may not be best suited. While driving a stepper motor in vacuum you need to minimise the amount of power dissipated in the motor, in order to slow down temperature rise. Without knowing what stepper motor drive you’re currently using it’s impossible to comment on if it’s suitable for driving a UHV stepper motor. You’d need to check the datasheet of the stepper motor drive and our stepper motor datasheet to check that they are compatible.
To answer your question about driving a D42.3 stepper motor with an Arduino, you could use one of our SMD3 Stepper Motor Drives. Depending how much control of the drive parameters you require there are several options to consider. Please note that none of these methods have been officially tested and are informal suggestions to help you get started:
- Use the 4P4C joystick port and simulate a button press by shorting the ‘CW’ or ‘CCW’ pin to ground.
- Pin 1 – GND
- Pin 2 – CW
- Pin 3 – CCW
- Pin 4 – Detect
This method relies on parameters already being saved to the SMD3. Instructions of which can be found in the SMD3 User Manual.
- Pin 1 – GND
- Use the SDE (step direction enable) interface. This is an industry standard interface allowing an external controller to generate stepping sequences, bypassing the SMD3’s internal motion controller. The SDE interface supports voltage levels of 3.3 Vdc to 5 Vdc, which can be supplied by an Arduino.
- Connect to the SMD3 via the serial interface, the Arduino Mega 2560 has 4 UART interfaces. For Arduinos with only one UART (and where this is occupied by the Arduino <-> PC connection), libraries exist where other IO pins can be configured to act as a UART interface (see https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/softwareSerial).
These methods should be enough to get you started, but if you have any further questions, please feel free to reply to this thread.