Tredecimus Motor

STEPPER MOTOR DETAILS

The Tredecimus ball lift uses a stepper motor, SilentStepStick and Arduino Nano.

This may seem a complex solution but although I tried several DC motors of various prices they were all way too loud, even despite increasingly complicated sound insulation.

Stepper motors are normally used in applications that require a precision positioning, such as in printers or CNC routers. The motor used in the Tredecimus has 200 steps for each revolution.

For a bit more on stepper motors please see here STEPPER

Stepper motors although DC powered can not be simply connected to the power supply in order for them to turn, they further require a driver and signal source.

Normally stepper motors are quite loud, the noise your printer makes comes from the steppers.

The driver used is a SilentStepStick which uses interpolation to increase the microsteps and smooth the rotation, which basically means the motor is as good as silent.

The driver is required as the Arduino Nano can not directly control the motor.

The Nano constantly sends 2 signals to the driver, one controls the motors direction and the other its speed.

You can see the small Nano programme used to control the stepper below.

/*     Tredecisimus stepper motor code
*             WOODENTIMES
*/

const int stepPin = 3; // Pin 3 on the Arduino is here defined as the step pin (speed)
const int dirPin = 4; // Pin 4 on the Arduino is here defined as the direction pin

void setup() {

pinMode(stepPin,OUTPUT); // Both pins are set to OUTPUT
pinMode(dirPin,OUTPUT);
}
void loop() {
digitalWrite(dirPin,HIGH); // The direction pin is kept HIGH if the pin was set to LOW then the motor would turn in the opposite direction.

    digitalWrite(stepPin,HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(500); // This is the delay between signals the higher the number the slower the motor.
    digitalWrite(stepPin,LOW);
    delayMicroseconds(500); // This is the delay between signals the higher the number the slower the motor.
}

The Nano pins 3 and 4 are defined as output pins, pin 3 controls the speed and pin 4 is responsible for the direction.

Pin 4 sends a constant HIGH (+5V) signal to the driver which ensures the motor turns in the correct direction, if this pin was LOW (<+1.5V) then the motor would turn in the opposite direction.

Pin 3 firstly sends a HIGH signal which causes the motor to advance one step which is equal to 1.8 degrees, then switches to LOW to prepare the driver for the next HIGH signal.

The speed of the motor can be controlled by increasing/decreasing the delay of the signals sent from pin 4.

If you wish to change any part of the Nano software you should take a look here ARDUINO

Please appreciate that I can not help with any changes you make or any problems you may have trying to change the software.

ARDUINO PROGRAMME

ARDUINO DATA SHEET

STEPPER MOTOR DATA SHEET

SILENTSTEPSTICK DATA SHEET