NEMA stepper motor with L293 drive - would it work?

Hi guys,
I wanted to ask for your advice, I want to make a 3d scanner and am looking for a best motor and drive for it, to turn the turntable with an object on it.

Right now I'm considering a NEMA stepper motor, 20mm height, like this one and an L293 chip + arduino to drive it.

It has a 1.8 degree steps, I believe I would be running it in half-steps ( i.e. 0.9 degrees at a time ).

What do you think, would it work?

Thanks!

Don't use an L293 - they are really for running DC motors.

Use a proper stepper driver board such as the Pololu A4988. Just make sure the board can handle the current needed by your motor. The A4988 (and similar) will also be easier to control with an Arduino.

...R

Thanks for the tip. Yet from the practical point of view, what do I gain from using the A4988 drive ( as I understand, it's a digital drive and I just pass how many steps I want to make to it ) vs L293 where I just apply current to certain pins to get a step, or 1/2 step, etc?

The L293 is a perfectly good driver for stepper motors, but it is just that, a driver - an amplifier of the small signals to switch on large currents. If you just want to apply a level to signify direction (high for one way or low for another) and a pulse for a step to be taken then you will need a controller which takes this step and direction inputs and converts it to the signals for a driver such as the L293. A good example is the L297 - I think the ST data sheet will be the first thing you come up with if you Google L297. I think the A4988 is a much more recent ship that combines the controller and driver, but I am not personally familiar with it.

Unless you have no funds but lots of time, I think you would be better served by looking for a CNC controller/driver for small stepper motors - these are quite commonly available. Software from either 3D printers or CNC machines can drive it - either through an Arduino, or through your computers parallel port using Mach3 or similar.

Mike

Sorry guys, I still don't get it if I already have a micro-controller ( arduino ) that can drive a stepper motor using L293, they why would I want to have an additional micro-controller inside a L297 or A4988 ?

Ah! In this case, you should be O.K.. potential problems are how large an item you are turning and what your power supply is - I see the motor is rated for 10V so you will have to use a power supply in this range, 5V may be O.K., 12V would probably be too high.

Mike

As far as I know with the L293 you have to connect 4 pins from the Arduino and your program has to switch the coils on and off in the correct order.

With the A4988 you just need 2 connections - step and direction (and you only need 1 if you don't need to change direction). Perhaps more importantly the A4988 can control the maximum current delivered to the stepper motor and can use high voltages (up to 35v) to enable the motor to move faster. The A4988 also has a built-in capability for microstepping. No contest, in my view.

...R

If you just need Z put it on a floating barge on a rail and drip water from it. Or dont, just throwing it in here.(idea from peachy printer, of course)