Flowchart/general programing guide?

Hi,

well i have never programmed a 3 axis stepper motor before and I can't get around the idea of how I would program the motors if I started from scratch. I just ordered the Audunio. Hopefully it will be here early next week. But in the mean time I want to try to program the stepper motors using the Basic Stamp microcontroller which I already have.

Does anyone know if there is a general guide to programming 3 axis stepper motors. There is probably books out there that show the easiest and most robust algorithm for programming a 3 axis motor. A flowchart would also be great also.

thank you

sun2407

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2008 02:55AM by sun2407.

You'll need some kind of driver to send power to the steppers. Do you already have that?

--Blerik

i'm not entirely sure what you mean. i've spent the past 3 months learning how to use and program an Arduino to control steppers, so I can definitely help you.

first off, you should look into the stepper control code we've already written. the easiest to understand is in the GCode_Interpreter firmware. its located here: [svn.reprap.org]

secondly, what stepper drivers are you using. i would recommend the RRRF stepper motor drivers. they use the industry standard step/direction interface. what this means it that you control them with 2 pins: step and direction. when you send a pulse on the step pin (take pin high for 10 usecs, then back to low) it will take a step in the desired direction. the direction is determined by direction pin. high = forward, low = reverse.

thirdly, there is an algorithm for coordiniated movement along a line (ie. when you want to move in both XY at the same time in a straight line) this is called Bresenhams DDA (digital differential algorithm) it has been implemented in the code above.

thats all there is to it, good luck!