Explorer phat stepper motor drive

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1

Having sorted out my solderingkeeping of the PI zero and successfully driving two motors in both directions , I want to have a look at stepper motors.

The spec states the outputs are suitable to drive a stepper motor, is that directly with no interface board for the stepper motor.

I am assuming that is the case because of the outputs being spec’ d at 500mA but wanted to confirm as I have got one motor with an interface board and one without.

Cheers

Steve

2

I’ve successfully driven a Unipolar stepper motor ( 28BYJ-48 ) from Explorer HAT and documented it in this gist: https://gist.github.com/Gadgetoid/f26f088463c431b40aa3

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3

Thanks for quick response , I have checked out the link and it all seems straight forward.

Is there any reason why the four 5v outputs can’t be used instead of the motor outputs?

Steve

4

I don’t believe there’s any reason why not. However the 5v outputs pull down to ground, so you’ll need to supply 5V to the common pin of the stepper, and pull the other connections down in the correct sequence.

I’m pretty sure we’ve had the same stepper I mentioned above running on them before, along with two motors in a short-lived display stand.

5

That’d be cool. Want to drive two steppers from the Pi, so was wondering whether to get two TB6612s, but if the explorer HAT can do it that’d be great.

6

I have just tried your example and now that I have looked at in detail it uses the four outputs and not the motor outputs. ( apologies major_tom)

thanks for the responses gadgetoid

Steve

7

Sounds like you can drive one stepper from the 2 H bridges and the other from the 4 outputs, you’d just have to have two different control schemes?

8

I was going to have a look at the circuit and see if that is possible before posting, hope it is. I have got two of their servo motor s and lego adaptors for one robot and another one with two stepper motors.

Steve

9

Hey, I’m looking to also run 2 stepper motors (28BY-J) from the explorer phat in an attempt to convert an old pan/tilt ipcam to use a pi zero and picam. What was your outcome? Did it work with 2 motors?