Stepper Motor Workshop UCSD-MAE October 2007 (1.5 hours) Workshop objectives and goal of applying stepper motors. We [his workshop is largely concerned with the “how-to” Basic characterization of step motor mechanical and electrical properties. Advantages and limitations of stepper motors. Brief discussion of speed/torque relationships. Basic stepper motor ‘anatomy’. Bit patterns and sequences far digital step control. Brief discussion of microprocessor input/output (1/O) structures. Brief discussion of Basic Stamp I/O. NaVaene Hands-on exer Following the brief introductory discussion above, our main focus will be on the hands-on section where we will hook up a stepper motor to a controller and a Basic Stamp 2 (BS2) microprocessor. You will write and modify microprocessor code to control the step motor in various Ways. The exercises ate designed to illustrate some stepper motor capabilities and some limitations, and will give you a good, practical hands-on introduction to using these devices. ‘What you will get out of this. Following completion of the workshop you should have erough basic understanding of stepper motors to decide if a step motor might be a good fit for a given project. You will also be able to design in a stepper motor for your project, and be able to hook it up, power it appropriately, and control it through your own software,Stepper Motors: A Brief Introduction Steve Roberts — UCSD/MAE. October 2007 Figure 10.25 Typical stepper motor rotor and stator configuration. (Courtesy of Oriental Mots, Torance, CA) Ball bearings Iron core B Permanent magnet Nonmagnetic motor shaft Iron core & (Material: Stainless steel SUS303 or equivalent) Figure 10.26 Actua stopper motor roto. (Courtesy of Oriental Motor, Torrance, CA) A special type of DC motor, known as a stepper motor, has the following performance characteristics: ““[Tean rotate Tn both directions, move in precise angul -rements, sustain a hold- ing torque at zero speed, and be controlled with digital circuits, It moves in accu- rafe angular increments, known as steps, in response to the application of digital pulses to an electric drive circuit. The number and cate of the pulses control the position and speed of the motor shaft. Generally, stepper motors are manufactured. with steps per revolution of 12, 24, 72, 144, 180, and 200, resulting in shaft incre- _ments of 30°, 15°, 5°, 2.5°, 2°, and 1.8° per step. “They are pow- “ered by DC sources and require digital crculiry to produce coil energizing sequences for rotation of the motor. Feedback is not always required for control, but the use of ‘an encoder or other position sensor can ensure accuracy when exact position eat is critical. The advantage of operating without feedback (i., in open loop mode) is that a closed loop control system is not required. Generally, stepper motors produce ess than 1 tp (746 W) and are therefore used only in low-power position control applications. ‘A commercial stepper motor has a large number of poles that define a large ‘number of equilibrium positions of the rotor. In the case of a permanent magnet stepper motor, the stator consists of wound poles, and the rotor poles are perma- neat magnets, Exciting different stator winding combinations moves and holds the different positions. uration of stator and rotor poles to preferred posiens of maximum magnetic flux, Depending on the eonstraction ofa given motor, there may be 200 or mone such postions. The game then consists tf sequentially changing te Toeation of the postions of maximum flux (by enerizng the str cols in parila Sequences) ota the motor operates smoothly inthe desired Siren. The stePmetor has sme asi elecicl and sararcalpropertics, bu the operational behavior oF the motor (how well or poorly it works is erly a function your contol algorithm. ‘Motion (and holMing) result fom theSome advantages of using stepper motors: Control can be (and often is) quite simple: On-Off (0/1) digital control from a microprocessor. Accurate stepping means many apps can be done in open-loop mode. Speed is easily controlled, proportional to pulse frequency from a controller. Resolution of rotational positioning can be quite good. 2000 stepsitev is commor Repeatability of absolute position can be excellent (but see step-skipping below). Best torque at low speeds. Can drive many low-speed applications directly with no gearing required. High reliability. No brushes; motor life is mainly bearing life. Cost is moderate ($25-80 typ), especially for permanent-magnet stepper types. Stepper motors and controllers are readily available from many vendors. Some disadvantages: Not good for some high-speed applications. Inappropriate control action can cause the motor to skip steps or otherwise misbehave. Can require sophisticated controllers for some applications ($$). Stepper motors are resonant systems (stepping frequency versus inertia cf the rotor and load combination), so satisfactory operation (noise, torque, startup) in particular applications can be tricky.Torque ~ Speed Characteristic A stepper motor is basically a constant power transducer, where power is the speed-torque product. Therefore, one defining characteristic of step motors is that, at a given voltage, the faster they run the less torque they produce. You trade speed for torque. The way to get more torque is to run them at higher voltages. However, if you run the motor at more than it’s rated nameplate voltage, you will draw too much current at low speeds and motor failure from overheating is the likely result. Most commercial step motor drivers include a way to limit the maximum eurrent through the motor windings. This allows high voltages (o be used (operating voltages commonly range from 3 to 25 times the nameplate rated voltage) for high torque, high speed applications ‘without during out the motor. ‘The graph above shows a stepper being operated at three different voltages, with V1 DirLast THEN nen-1 ENOTF | Dirlast = Direction DEBUG "Step delay (0-100 ms: " SERIN | D89in,BaudComm, [DEC stepDelay] ‘short delay = faster DEBUG * nee 13 FOR i ae TO nsteps "send the step patterns IF Direction=0 THEN *O means clockwise SEROUT SerPinOut,Baudard, ["" Motor ,Bitpactern(n//4)] ‘control byte ELSE t= 6 means CCH SEROUT SerPinOut, Bauderd,["i",Motor,BitPattern(3-(n//4))] ‘control Page 1ENDIF PAUSE StepDelay NeXT PAUSE 500 Loop ENG Fullstep.bs2 Page 2 ‘delay after making a step ‘apply holding torque for 500 msFulTRamp.bs2 ‘program = FullRamp.bs2 Steve Roberts UCSD/MAE 16 Oct 2007 1A simple: full-step control program for a unipolar stepper motor. ‘with inital and final ramp. . . ‘you specify the number of steps, the direction of rotation, and the speed. ‘For each step of the motor, a control byte is sent out on 1/0 pins 0-7, with "the actual step pattern contained in the Jowest (least significant) 4 bits of "the control byte. these 4 bits correspond to 1/0 pins 0,1,2,3. The group of '8 1/0 pins 0-7 form an 8-bit byte, and are referred to programatically with ‘the pre-defined variable name “OUTL". So, each time you change the bit pattern ‘in OUTL, you are presenting that new pattern to the step motor, which causes ‘a step event. 'NoTE on the '//' operator: This operator is used to calculate which of the four bit patterns to use at each step. The // operator gives the remainder of a division. For example, in integer arithmetic 11/4 = 2. But there's a remainder of 3. The result of 11//4 gives 3, the remainder from the 11/4 division. so, as the Step count proceeds 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11.,. the // operator will ‘calculate 0,1,2,3,0,1,2,3,0,1,2,3- "sequence. 1 {SSTAMP BS2}. * {$paastc 2.5} DIR. = 811111111 »'which'wiil give us the required step ying 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7 are outputs BitPattern VAR Byte(4) array of the’ four full-step patterns "46543210 "these are the individual bit nunbers Bitpattern(0) = 00110000 ‘the most significant 4 bits are used Bitpattern(1) = 01100000 Bitrattern(2) = #1109000 Bitpattern(3) = 10010000 DB9in CON 16 Tuse the DB9 connector for comm SerPinout CON 8 tuse this pin for serial out to ctr] board Baudcomm CON 84 184 means 9600 baud BaudBrd CON 0 '0 means 50k bps for motor board Motor CON 4 ‘defines which controller board connections StepDelay VAR word matt period after each step,” in ms RampDelay VAR Byte ‘calculated step delay during ramp Ramp con 30 thow many ramp steps i VAR word ‘counter for # of sitpattern ngteps. VAR word tdesired nunber of Bitrattern Direction VAR Byte tdirection of rotation. O=cw, n VAR Word "step counter A =0 ‘starting value bo SEROUT, SerPinout, Bauderd, ["i",Motor,%00000000] ‘de-energize all phases xsteps: DEBUG "How many Steps (=5100)! SERTN 089in,Baudconm, [DEC nSteps] “how many steps? IF nSteps < 100 THEN xSteps DEBUG "Direction (0/1): SERIN DB9in, BaudComm, [DEC Direction] ‘direction? (O=cw, DEBUG "Step delay (0-1000 ms: SERIN | DB9in,Baudcomm, [DEC StepDelay’ DEBUG * =CCW) "short delay = faster 1B FOR i=1 TO Ramp nent] IF Direction=0 THEN . SEROUT SerPinOut, saudBrd, ["i",Motor BitPattern(n//4)] "control ‘amp _up to speed ‘increment the step count Page 1FullRamp.bs2 ELSE SEROUT SerPinout,Baudsrd, ["i",Motor,Bitpattern(3-(n//4))] ‘control ENDIF RampDelay=(Ramp-i+1) ‘calc current step delay IF Rampdelay > stepOelay THEN ; ji PAUSE RampDelay ‘we're still below desired speed ELSE PAUSE Stepdelay ‘we're at the desired speed ENDIF NEXT FOR i = 1 TO nSteps-(2*Ramp) ‘we're up to speed here nent ‘increment the step count IF Direction=0 THEN *0 means clockwise SEROUT SerPinout Baudsrd, ["i",Motor,gitPattern(n//4)] ‘control byte ELSE 0 means _Ccw SEROUT SerPinOut , BaudBrd, Motor, Bi tpattern(3-(n//4))] ‘control ENDIF PAUSE StepDelay NEXT FOR i=1 TO Ramp ‘ramp down to stop 1 IF Direction=0 THEN . SEROUT SerPinout Bauderd, ["i Motor,Bitpattern(n//4)] ‘control ELSE SEROUT SerPinout,BaudBrd, ["i",Motor,Bitpattern(3-(n//4))] ‘control ENDIF PAUSE (StepDelay+i) "delay time goes short->long NEXT PAUSE 500 ‘apply holding torque FOR SO Ms Loop END page 2Microcontroller I/O Structures Basic Stamp nomenclature [= a vo Pin #’s Is @lisbQ — 6 —_ Microcontroller Vdd 20 MCU +—— Power) pes (MCU) +5, 133V) a 2 ae g Sy) Vss 5 4— Ground ° a 37 Z - 6 — p—T Clock” ] 5 z (Res, Xtal) SS MSb 7 — Hl > 2 elise g 4 s x 9 a Reset a faa] ‘ g 10- 2 ll a 12- & oe = 14- MSb Ms J5—2__ Input/Output (1/0) can be organized as individual bits, as 8-bit bytes, or as 16-bit words. Representation: binary (%), decimal ( ), hexidecimal (S) Inthe Basic Stamp language: Bit: PIN3 = 1, PINI1 - 0 (can only be 0 or Byte: am = %11010010, 210 (0-255), $D2 (00-FF) Word OUTS = %1101011011000010, = 54978 (0-65535), $D6C2_ (0000-FFFF)4: BASIC Stamp Architecture - Memory Organization ‘WeneunbumervarueLss, “Table 4.2: RAM Organization for aL BS2 models, NOTE: There aro 16 words, of ‘wo byes oach fora Toa of 32 bys" A RS aro individual addressable tvough varie ‘mocies; ho bits wit the tpper tree wants ar ato Indiualy aderessable ough ‘tha predefined names shown ‘Allreglters are wor, ye, ‘bole ond bt adaséable “The BSep, B52po, and BS2px havo an adaonal sa of INS, ‘OUTS, anc DIRS rites rat ‘are swat an aut ofthe ‘memory pn ace oe rain Ins, OUTS, and DIRS. by using AUXIO, MAINIO, ane IOTERM, Onty to BS2pa0 nas {he reared extra UO pine tie features intenda oe the variable RAM for these models, only the BS2p40 module has the extra 161/0 pins for which this feature is intended, ‘The word variable INS is unique in that itis read-only. The 16 bits of INS reflect the state of 1/0 pins PO through PIS. It may only he read, not written. OUTS contains the states of the 16 output latches. DIRS controls the direction (input or output) af each ofthe 16 1/0 pins. ‘AO ina particular DIRS bit makes the corresponding pin an input and a 1 ‘makes the corresponding pin an output. So if bit 5 of DIRS is 0 and bit 6 of DIRS is 1, then 1/0 pin 5 (PS) is an input and i/O pin 6 (P6) is an output. ‘Appin that is an inputis at the mercy of circuitry outside the BASIC Stamp; the BASIC Stamp cannot change its state. A pin that is an output is set 10 the state indicated by the corresponding bit of the OUTS register. When the BASIC Stamp is powered up, or reset, all memory locations are cleared ty 0, so all pins are inputs (DIRS = 940000000000000000). Also, if the PBASIC program sets all the 1/O pins to outputs (DIRS %IIIITIM111110)) ther they will initially output low, since the output latch (OUTS) is cleared to all zeros upon power-up or reset, as well Word Naive | Bye Noma] Nibbis Names [ — Bit Names ‘Spsetai Notes ns | ONG INH [NANG] INO- INT put Wc. _| we 1N15, ours’ | OUT OOTH | Guta ours | uTO- OUTT | Oaipal pine ourc, ourp | oute—ours Dae | OWL DA | Ora: ORB TO pin erection conor DiC, omD_| DIAS —DInIS Wo. B08 we 2B we BABS via. 8.67 wa 1. Bo ‘ws [ B10, Bt ‘We | 512 bts Wr Bi, BIS wf 16, B17 wo B18. B19 Wid! —|~ 20, bot wir 3 ‘wig | 628, bos ‘BASIC Stamp Stax and Reteronce Mamal 22+ wan paratox.come Page 83Basic Stamp 2 (BS2) V/O structures Word DIRECTION CONTROL DIRx are all ‘reserved’ names in the BS2 syntax, and are used to specify whether a structure (Word, Byte. Bit) is an input or an output. Bytes Bits Comments/Examples DIRS DIRL, DIRH_ DIRO-DIR7 DIR8-DIRIS Indicates VO direction input=9, output=1) DIRS = $1101011101101110 DIRE, = 11001111 DIRG = 1 DIR9 = 0 Word OUTPUTS Bytes Bits Pins Comments/Examples outs 0-15 OUTL 0-7 OUTH 8-15 OUTO-OUT7 0-7 OUTS-OUTIS 8-15 Output entire Word outs = x (0x 65535) Output low Byte oumL = x (0x Output high Byte outa = x (0 x 255) Output on a single pin oure = x (x-0orJ) Output on a single pin ours = x (x=0or J) Word INPUTS. Bytes Bits Pins CommentsExamples INS INH 8-15 INO-IN7 0-7 INS-INIS 8-15 Input entire Word x = INS (0x 65535) input low Byte x = INL (0° x"255) Input high Byte x = INH (0-x-255) Input on a single pin x = IN (e-Vorl) Input on a single pin x = INL1 (x=0or /)