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README.md

UNO-Robotics-Club-Stepper-Shield

Making a 4-channel stepper motor driver shield for the University of New Orleans Robotics Club.

For a history of stepper motor control and the circuit boards the club has used, see:

]]>https://docs.google.com/document/d/10kJS-FDRQ6pjaNmQC8BtY9OaUvs47ngB3nl9...]]>

Previously, the club's stepper motor controller boards have been separate from the Arduino microcontroller. In order to give mechanical engineers a smaller part to design with, development had focused on making these circuit boards smaller.

With a shield, there is a mechanical benefit: we can effectively combine the arduino and stepper motor controller into one component for the mechanical engineer to design around.

There is a reliability benefit: By embedding the connections to the stepper motor controller board in a shield, there are 10 less wires that needed to be connected. This reduces the number of breakpoints and checks that are needed.

And finally there is a controls benefit: Additionally, by connecting all the pins of the Stepper Motor Driver Carriers to pins on the Arduino, we can unlock more of the features of the chips programmatically. For example, we can write turn_motors_off() and turn_motors_on() functions.

The Motor Controller Board is used to control 4 stepper motors attached to mechanum wheels. To do this, we attach 4 of Pololu's TB67S249FTG Stepper Motor Driver Compact Carriers to a printed and populated board.

This board was developed within Eagle, and we are documenting its development here.

Helpful Links:

Pololu Stepper Motor Driver Carrier: ]]>https://www.pololu.com/product/3096]]>

Eagle Tutorial from SparkFun: ]]>https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-install-and-setup-eagle]]>

Quadstepper from SparkFun: ]]>https://www.sparkfun.com/products/retired/10507]]>

UNO Robotics: ]]>https://unorobotics.herokuapp.com/]]>

GoFundMe: ]]>https://www.gofundme.com/unorobotics]]>

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