Motor Shield and 2.5v Stepper?

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atanguay
 
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Motor Shield and 2.5v Stepper?

Post by atanguay »

Hi All-

Got a good deal on a nice size stepper over at Electronics Goldmine. It's an 8-wire stepper, but I think I've successfully reversed engineered it and know the sequence and everything. (pretty proud of that)

My only issue is that I didn't check the motor shield specs and it seems to want to go 5volts or more. Wooops.

Can I bring this power down with some resistors and be OK, or am I hosed?

Here's the stepper...
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/p ... ber=G18214


Thanks in advance for any ideas and sorry for the rather newbie question. I am a bit of a novice, but I'm trying!

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Motor Shield and 2.5v Stepper?

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

From what I can see of the label, it looks like 2.5v 3.7A. 3.7A is much more than the Motor Shield is capable of. I think you will need to find a higher-current stepper controller to drive these. :(

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atanguay
 
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Re: Motor Shield and 2.5v Stepper?

Post by atanguay »

Ah bummer...I had a bad feeling. Thanks for the reply!

The one positive thing I can say is that I learned a TON about steppers last night and successfully reverse engineered the thing. I rearranged the wires so that it's now a 'Bipolar Series'. It was fun. Like a puzzle.


Any suggestions for a controller that would be Arduino friendly?

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Motor Shield and 2.5v Stepper?

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

You might check to see what they have at Pololu.com. Very low-voltage motors like that are hard to drive because they need higher currents to achieve the same torque.

Much beyond 2-3A per phase is getting into industrial controller territory which starts getting more expensive.

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