Interfacing stepper motors with computer

[John DiBernardo]

First time here. I would like to talk with some one who knows something about controlling stepper motors. I bought two stepper motors, two controllers and a power supply. When I received them in the Mail I opened the box to look for schematics that might give me some clues on how to hook the controllers up to a serial port on a laptop. I want to use the stepper motors to control the position of a door to control air flow through a duct. I know it can be done, but the hookup instructions for the cw260c controller to a computer aren't spelled out clearly to me. I need to precisely control the position of the doors and need to be able to preset values to select for specific door positions. I am thinking I may need some software and schematics detailing the tx and rx pinouts of the serial port and the controller.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks J DiBo

[vger]

The serial port will not do what you are wanting directly. Your controller has three inputs, Step (CP), Direction (CW), and enable (EN). You will either need to connect to the "Parallel printer port" on your computer, or find and obtain some sort of interface. The serial port is designed to send and recieve data as a stream on single wires. The parallel port on the other hand can directly control several wires individually.
Here is a fairly good starting point.
http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/parallel_output.html

Best of luck
Steve

[John DiBernardo]

Hi Steve,
Thanks for the information. I went to the epanorama website to find pinouts for the db25 connectors, But I am looking for an easier solution like cp+ goes to ?, cp- goes to ?, cw+ goes to ?, cw- goes to ?, en+ goes to ? and en- goes to ?
I'm an aircraft electrician not familiar with cnc hardware trying to use some of your stuff to work for my project. Is there any one out there with an easy answer for a layman?

Thanks DiBo

[pminmo]

It completely depends on the controllers on how to hook them up. Any info on them?

[John DiBernardo]

Hi,
the stepper motors I am using are 57bygh405a and the drivers I have for them are cw260c. The power supply is a PS1-150W-36. The vendor I purchased the parts from has a tech support division that was at the very best useless to me and recommended I search cnczone. I thank you for your support. By the way, what age do you think it is too old to start learning cnc machining? I wish I would have gotten into the cnc field 20 years ago.

Thanks DiBo

[vger]

DiBo
Got to run a errand, will be back soon to do a post...
Steve

[vger]

DiBo,
I've used TurboCNC (free download at http://www.dakeng.com/turbo.html ) it's not the best, but it works. Take a look at the manual Part 2 in the configuration area. It allows you to configure the I/O lines (parallel port) with great flexibility. For your dirve you would use the "Step/Dir" option on each of the axis configuration screens (yes screens, it's not a windows program, it's DOS) and set the pin #'s for which pin (of the outputs pins that are available) do do what.
Your drives have opto-isolated inputs. You can look at the input as being an LED (with internal series current limit resistor) that can be driven directly from the parallel port (spec says it can handle 70V max). So the - (minus) inputs can be connected to ground pins on the parallel port and the + (plus) inputs would connect to the data lines for control. Basicly the program writes a data byte to the parallel port and sets the bits it wants high (+5V) to 1's and the others to 0's. The program takes care of that for you. It's a good idea to put all of your step and direction lines on the D0-D7 lines so that only 1 byte must be written to make a move.
With an old parallel printer cable (printer end cut off) you could most likely wire this up and connect the motors and supply to the drives and have it turning the motors in just a couple of hours. You would need an ohm-meter to wring out the cable for which wire goes to what pin, not too hard.
Let me know how you are doing.

Steve

[pminmo]

What crap instructions....
This is some information to the parallel port. http://pminmo.com/pport/pport.htm
For simplicity pins 18 thru 25 are the gnd of the parallel port and I will call them LPTG.
CP- to LPTG, CW- to LPTG, Rest- to LPTG
driver 1 CP+ to pin 2, CW+ to pin 3
driver 2 CP+ to pin 4, CW+ to pin 5

Assuming REST is a motor enable REST+ can either goto the same pin, such as pin 1, or wired to 5v to enable the motors when power is on.

Each driver power postive to power supply +, negative to supply negative, don't daisy chain.

[John DiBernardo]

Thanks for all the help on the parallel port to driver interface connections.
Now that I have a harness built for the computer parallel port interface, I am ready to wire the motors to the drivers. I have two unipolar six wire 57BYGH405A and two CW260C drivers. The color code on the stepper motor is A=RED, C=GRN, B=YEL, D=BLU and black and white are the center taps for the coils. The drivers six connections on the power side are labeled: <DC70V/VCC, GND,A+, A-, B+,B-. Which wires from the driver go to which wires on the stepper motor?
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/images/icons/icon5.gif
Question
DiBo

[dsnellen]

Originally Posted by John DiBernardo Thanks for all the help on the parallel port to driver interface connections. Now that I have a harness built for the computer parallel port interface, I am ready to wire the motors to the drivers. I have two unipolar six wire 57BYGH405A and two CW260C drivers. The color code on the stepper motor is A=RED, C=GRN, B=YEL, D=BLU and black and white are the center taps for the coils. The drivers six connections on the power side are labeled: <DC70V/VCC, GND,A+, A-, B+,B-. Which wires from the driver go to which wires on the stepper motor? http://www.cnczone.com/forums/images/icons/icon5.gif Question DiBo

John,
Did you ever receive an answer to this question? I purchased a pair of 57BYGH405A steppers. My current steppers are eight wire with wires connected in pairs for a four wire configuration. Wondering how to seamlessly integrate the two types of steppers.

Dave