I'm developing a 5 axis robotic arm with stepper motors and I am getting around to ordering most of my parts. I plan on using 5 EasyDriver shields to drive all of my motors. I am also planning on using just a basic arduino uno board to go with it. So here are my questions:
Is there any alternative instead of buying a ton of Easy Drivers and connecting all of them to a single board?
And if there isn't, then how would the setup look to use more than 3 stepper motors? This is the most useful picture I found, however It only shows 3 and while I know I could plug in a 4th I am unsure whether I could plug in a 5th.
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2 Answers
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Each EasyDriver takes two digital inputs - step and direction. These do not need any particular protocol so you can use any pin capable of digital output.
The Arduino uno has 14 digital outputs and 6 analogue inputs which also can be configured as digital outputs, so you could drive up to ten of the boards from an Arduino without any other hardware.
Just connect the two digital inputs for each board to two more digital pins of the Arduino, for example 8 and 9 for board four and 10 and 11 for board five. This leaves 0 and 1 clear for serial communications.
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There probably are boards that can handle 5 motors, but one of them is probably going to cost more than 5 of the boards you have identified. Also when you blow a component on the big board you loose all 5 motors. I don't know what your current requirements are but there may be smaller and cheaper boards that would do the job. (Other driver??)
In my opinion you would be better using multiple simple boards, it will make your code easier, your layout easier and leave you room to expand more easily.
I would mount your drivers on a single piece of strip board using Pins and Sockets and then bring all the connections out to an edge and use a 'ribbon cable' to hook it up to your UNO.
