There are a few things that should be noted here, this is not just a simple stepper controller it's a smart controller which can be easily updated and changed.

Some advantages of the driver :

• more drive modes selectable by jumpers or program (normal, half step,  high torque)
• power saving mode
• ability to add temperature sensors, limit sensors to protect the machine

The driver is built around a pic16f84 microcontroller, basically the circuit is a tension stabilizer, an oscillator for the pic microcontroller, some components to set pin B0 as interrupt and all the ports pins are connected to pins so they can be easily connected.

WARNING: to create this you will need to program the pic microcontroller, and for that you need a programmer, you can see how to build one on this blog, here : pic 16f84 jdm programmer

Here is a picture with the final product :

stepper driver front view

stepper driver back view

2 controllers in an 2 axis driver

For the pcb design i used the eagle software (great software) to create first a schematic then the board and then the print files,

here is the schematic :

Stepper controller schematic

The huge advantage for this is that you have all the port pins connected to pins, and all of them except the pin b0 (which is made to be kept low or high) can be used for anything.

In this case we have pins bo - tact, pin b1 - direction, pins b2- b5 as phases selection.

And now here are the designs for this schematic :

bottom view

top view

And here is the file ready to be printed, this file is at the actual dimensions :

stepper controller print

In the above image the top layer is already mirrored so all you have to do is print it and follow the instructions from this post : How to create PCB’s using toner transfer method

All you have to do now is to program the pic, here is the compiled version : Compiled program

The program is compiled using ccs compiler, if you are interested here is the  source code : source code

And this is is.... have fun.

Related posts:

1. Stepper motor inteligent driver and controller
2. programming the pic16f84
3. Testing my stepper motor driver and software

The driver is composed from 2 parts, 2 separates modules the power module (ROAR HB power module)  which contains the H bridges and the control module (ROAR MPP brain module) which will send signals to the power module.

The power module is pretty straight forward, will need 4 input pins, 4 output pins, and in pins for logic supply and power supply. As i was going to use the driver maybe in future robots also i decided to put some leds on the board 2 red led for each supply and 1 led for each input pin, so a total of 6 leds, i also added some pins for the cooling fan for the h bridge as the motor can suck a lot of power the bridge gets pretty hot.

Here is the full driver (the power module and the brain module, and a cooling fan)

full driver

Here is my final version of the power module a.k.a ROAR HB power module

ROAR HB power module

The huge advantage of this module is that it can use on a multitude of circuits all inputs and outputs are connected to pins. This can also be used to control a robot with 2 motors (control speed and direction for each one).  All the plans and logic you need to build it is available on this web page, if you don't have the time, the mood or the tools to build it, you can post a comment and i'll build one for you on a very good price... 25$ let's say.

The construction pf the power module can be seen in detail on a diferent post. (i'm working on it right now)

Here is the components list for the ROAR HB power module :

• 1 * L298N (dual full h bridge)
• 6 * 1k resistor
• 12 * 1N5819 (fast diode, you can use any fast diode that can handle 30V/1A)
• 2 * red leds
• 4 * green leds
• 19 * pins
• 2 * jumpers

And finally here is the ROAR MPP brain module :

the driver ROAR MPP brain module

This module is also very usefull in lots of application because it's fully customizable, on this board is everything the pic needs to run, the pin B0 seted to be used as an interrupt... and a power led.

Related posts:

1. Stepper motor controller
2. Testing my stepper motor driver and software
3. My CNC machine, the beginnings, the X axis working

This is an article for people who are just starting to work with micro controllers and want to find out more what they should do.

I'm also a beginner at this moment but i'm trying to get better, and this post and other describe my steps so you can learn from my mistakes in programming and electronics.

So you want to program a micro controller, maybe a pic16f84 (that's what i use)  and you don't know what to use assembler or c, well i hope that after reading this article you will be able to make a choice.

Both languages have advantages and disadvantages, you will have to see what works best in your case, it's not a basic rule and those are just guide lines that will help you see what programming language works best for you.

Now, lets start with the assembler. This is good if you want to make really small programs, like turning leds on, counting, a pwm controll. Because you are a beginner now it's very hard for you to make complex programs, but it's good to use the assembler because you can learn stuff about the arhitecture of the microcontroller and learns stuff about how it's working. Also an other advantage it's that you can see exactly what's happening there and if you want to do some timing this perfect because you know exaclty how many clock cycles takes every operation. And in the finall a very important matter is the size of the program, the programs written directly in assembler language are much smaller than the programs written in C.

The C language. First off all you will have to find a compiler for your micro controller (if you use pic16f84 i suggest the hi-tech compiler, works really good). When you have the compiler you will have to see what features it has (data types, functions, etc). Developing in C for micro controllers it's really easy, in general developing in C is about 10 times faster than in assembler, so it's good if you want to make something really fast, also is good if you want to make complex programs. A big disadvantage is the size of the code, the code generated by the compiler is usually much bigger than the one written directly in assembler and if you use a micro controller with a few program memory that is a serious problem, for example pic16f84 has 4K of program memory, a clock program i wrote has 1.8K, so if you want to add some other features you can't add very many.

So here is a short comparison:

• development time is much much shorter using C
• the size of the program is bigger if you use C
• you can do more accurate timings using assembler
• you can learn more by using assembler instead of C
• you don't need a compiler if you use asm (mplab does everything)
• it's hard to do complicated programs in asm.

Now the decision is yours you can try to do the same thing using both languages, and do some tests to see which one fits you best.

Here are some files attached :

counter using assembler

an clock built in C for 16f84

The examples above are just for you to make an idea about how a program should look. If you take those and burn them on the 16f84 micro controller they will work, but maybe they won't do exactly what  you expect form them because i'm still testing using those programs.

Happy codding !!

Related posts:

1. programming the pic16f84
2. pic 16f84 jdm programmer
3. Stepper motor controller

Step1 : get a programmer, i suggest to build your own programmer because it's very cheap and you can learn something about the pic in the process, and also it's fun . You can find the detailed tutorial in the previews post. That is a jdm programmer and uses the serial port of the computer.

Step2 : get a software for you programmer. If you use a jdm programmer as I do, i suggest to use the ponyprog2000 software, its great and does exactly what you what it to do : it writes your program to the pic16f84 microcontroller. In the image bellow you can see the configuration panel for the jdm programmer (this works with the programmer described on the previews post).

programmer settings

Don't forget to select the correct serial port if you have more than one. If you click Probe and there is an error, it's no problem, just load an hex file and write it to the pic, and it should work. If the program is transferred with success a success message will appear, else a fail message will appear

Step3: Write a simple program to test the pic, I suggest you load a value on a port, or something really easy, with which you can test if the pic is working.

Here is a very simple test program which will load a bit pattern to portb:

processor 16f84A

include  <p16f84a.inc>

__config _CP_OFF &_XT_OSC &_WDT_OFF &_PWRTE_ON
list    p=16F84A
radix    hex

PortB    equ    0x06        ; we define the port b address
org    0x000

start

movlw    0x00        ; we load the 0 value on the working register
movwf    0x86       ; move the value from w to the address 0x86, this sets all the bits in port b to be outputs

movlw   0x5b        ;load some values on the W
movwf   PortB        ;move the values from W to portB, this is the moment when the leds are lighting

repeat   goto    repeat    ; repeat this forever

end

Step4: Get a pic simulator, i personally use the demo from oshonsoft (http://www.oshonsoft.com/pic.html) works really nice... if you like it you can buy it. Now if the program works as it should work, you can 'burn' it to the pic.

Step5: Insert the pic into the programmer and burn the program to the pic. After this remove the pic from the programmer and insert it into the test circuit, power up the circuit and admire the results of your work.

Also usually when i insert and remove the pic from the programmer this is not connected to the serial port, i do this to avoid frying the microcontroller.

If you are a begginer like me, you will have to test a lot of things until you can start doing really amaizing stuff, so i sugest you build some kind of test board for your pic, i built one, bellow it's a picture with the pic16f86 development board. It contains the very basic stuff you need to have to make it work. My developnemt board is also under development, but i'll add a post as soon as possible. Now both pic's ports are taken separatly each pin is protected with a 470ohms resistor, it has an 4mhz quartz oscilatro and a voltage stabilisator and filter. I also added a 12 pin socket (on which i put a 4 digit clock display for now)

pic16f84 development board

development board

empty development board

I really hope that this very simple tutorial will help you to create your very first pic program or application. If you have any questions don't hesitate to comment on this post and leave me qustions.

Related posts:

1. Asm programming vs C programming
2. pic 16f84 jdm programmer
3. Stepper motor controller

This page is about building a pic programmer step by step, this is a jdm programmer which will be connected to the serial port of the computer, requires no power supply and works on may types of pics.

I documented all the process very well (with pictures) and i'll also describe it in detail.

Everything starts by searching a good schematics and analyze it to see if everything is looking good, i suggest to use the pic data sheet to see if everything looks good, i used the schematics bellow :

I would post the source site but i really can't remember the source, anyway the internet is full with this picture.

Next step is to create the PCB boards, i used the free version of eagle for this, works really nice, and creates really good boards, you just have to work a little bit with the parameters, and make sure that you don't forget any leads, or else the programmer will not work, and you wasted your time.

I used the PCB's bellow, you can use those one because they work ). But remember to mirror one of them when you print it.

I mirrored the one with the red lines... and all the components ware on that side, was a little hard to solder the socket where the pic micro controller will seat.

Now comes the tricky part, my plan was to print those on some plastic sheet and then transfer it to the pcb with the soldering iron, i had some thing like on the picture bellow :

this should be a very good way to create really nice pcb's for any circuit very easy. But disaster stroke... the drawing was not transferring, i tried for about 3 hours (no picture from that time, because i was to busy to trow things) but no success, so i continued with the marker.... i was not going to give away, because there was a 16f84 waiting for me.

Mean while the pizza arrived

a good deserved pizza

After i eated the pizza which was almost the greatest moments of the day i finished drawing the pcb, on both sides :

pic16f84 programmer pcb ready to be coroded

But, before all the lines are drawn the holes must be drilled, this is very important because the board has 2 sides and the holes need to be in the right place, and if you use a hand held drilling machine your holes wont be exactly perpendicular and they will not come out exactly where you want them.

After this was ready was time to insert into the ... i don't know how its called in English (ferric chloride i think) to make the finished pcb. The solution was new, and i also put it on the heating unit, and moved all the time to work faster, it was ready in adout 10 -15 minutes.

corroding the programmers pcb

And here's the finished pcb, after i wached it with alchool to disolve the permanent marker :

the finished pcb

Also i just remembered that i forgot to say about the holes, the holes have to be made before you draw the pcb, because if you make them after maybe the holes will not fit on both sides. I used a hand held drilling macine with 1.3mm drill (1mm will be ideal).

Now i started soldering the pices, be very carefull on which side you solder the socket because if it's soldered on the wrong side.... well that's bad and the microcontroller won't fit, think twice before starting. I soldered the socket first, and checked if the pins are soldered with the measuring device (a very cheam one 1$ actually ). Also be carefull when you solder the diodes and the transistors not to mess up with the pins.

Here's the pcb with all the components soldered

the programmer with all the pices

Now i just puted a zif socket on the soldered socket and added a cable and a serial connector. This pcb also has support for in circuit serial programming (the pins on the left which are not yet added) so with this programmer you can progreamm pics directly in circuit (if you also add the support to the other circuit). As a cable I used the cable from an old mouse, because has exactly 5 wires and is very flexible and long, great for this use.

Here is the final version:

finished pic programmer

Now everythig i had to do is plug it in and test it. I used the ponyprog2000 software.

And IT WORKS !!!!!!!!! it's a great success ! i hope you will have the same success! have fun!

Related posts:

1. programming the pic16f84
2. Stepper motor controller
3. Stepper motor inteligent driver and controller