Build Thread- 2ND GENERATION 150V 8A Bipolar Stepper Motor Driver Design

[baggs]

HELLO,
This is my updated design which is a complete Bipolar Stepper Motor Driver circuit that once built by anyone here will control any Bipolar Stepper Motor that uses a motor voltage of 150VDC max and 4A per winding max. Though with a bigger power supply & heavier heatsinks the circuit can handle up to 10A's per winding. But make sure your power supply can handle it and that you increase the size of the heatsinks

So now you can operate your stepper motor that has a 12mH winding inductance with the needed 111VDC or your stepper motor with it's 6.8mH winding inductance at the needed 85VDC. In fact you can fully operate a motor up to 150VDC w/o any worries.

The pcb is being laid out as we speak but we did the prototype using an old method called point to point for the driver section & wire wrap for the controller section. There is a layout pdf file for the driver section.

To insure there was no noise being passed around caused from a long trace we decided to TINY LOGIC. Yes we are using some SOT-23-5 I.C's which are single AND gates. Thus no long traces from a quad AND gate to it's needed area. So the A/B signals pass through 2 AND gates which are enabled using the enable 1 line, same with C/D which are enabled by the enable 2 signal.

Power required is of course the voltage for the motor drive plus a clean regulated +15VDC & +5VDC. The +15V s/b rated at 1A while the +5V s/b rated at 500Ma.

Any questions please ask but if you look at the design it is pretty much a very straight forward design except for the fact that you can operate a stepper to 150VDC w/o selling your first born to pay for the Driver.

There's a layout for the prototype driver board, Phase A / Phase B motor driver circuits, Page 1 & 2 of the controller section. There is no circuit for a power supply as that's up to you. But remember the +5 & +15 voltages are required to be well regulated while the motor voltage should not be regulated but it should be stiff. Use at least a minimum of 2ea 4,700uF 200VDC caps on your power supplies outputs I used 4ea & it is rock solid!

NOTE: My 1st Design had a big hardware flaw, it required the protection for PASS THROUGH to be done in firmware. So in order for the 1st driver design to be usable a mpu had to be used, 1st to allow microstepping but 2nd to stop any PASS THROUGH problem. But if someone decided to wire up the 1st design to a standard Full / Half step L297 controller, the H-Bridge would blow up & take a lot of other stuff with it. So unless your going to control my 1st design with a micro DO NOT USE IT!

SO PLEASE ENJOY!
baggs

EDIT: THE FILES HAVE BEEN UPDATED TO SHOW ALL CHANGES AGAINST THE ORIGINAL DESIGN SCHEMATIC & LAYOUT. CHANGES MADE 1) BOOTSTRAP DIODE CHANGE TO A FASTER DEVICE AE BAS21/BAV21 2) 10k RESISTORS REMOVED FROM GATE DRIVE SECTION DUE TO NOT BEING NEEDED. 3) THE BOOTSTRAP CAP VALUE RAISED TO INCREASE DISCHARGE TIME DUE TO THE ORIGINAL VALUE BEING TOO LOW. 4) ERROR IN THE SPEC ON VCC2, SHOWN AS +12VDC WAS +15VDC TYPO ERROR. 5) ADDED NOTE TO ANY BUILDER TO MAKE SURE TO USE A NON INDUCTIVE CURRENT SENSE RESISTOR AE USE A CADDOCK MP915-0.5-1% 15W TO-126 PKG DEVICE. 6) PARTS LAYOUT WAS CHANGED TO NOT SHOW REMOVED PARTS AE 10K RESISTORS.

[chinsettawong]

Looking forward to seeing your PCB.

[baggs]

To everyone here,
My plans were to layout the pcb get it produced & supply people with a kit made up of the pcb & hard to find parts. But after getting some feedback by a couple of old timers I have decided on no KIT but posting the artwork for a pcb should still be O.K.
I do all my work in Orcad but because of it's files being hard to work with unless you have Orcad I bought Eagle version 5.2xx and will reproduce the same schematics in it & layout the board using it, thus making it easier for everyone to deal with. As I have never used Eagle it will take a little time to learn thus the reason for the layout because with it one can build it up using point to point soldering.

NOW A POINT THAT EVERYONE SHOULD READ: Do not for any reason sane or insane connect this driver to rectified AC wall voltage. UNLESS you run it through an isolation transformer first! This is the reason that if I do sell these units it will be as built units only & the power supply will be included.

baggs

[chinsettawong]

Please also consider posting your PCB file in PDF format.

Wachara C.

[skullworks]

I would hope you might reconsider - I'd love to get my hands on the bare PCB's and built it from there.

A disclaimer should be enough to protect you.

Since the assembly and use of this product is beyond the control and supervision of the OEM no warranty or suitability for any use is stated or implied. The user of this product assumes fully responsibility for any and all results and the OEM shall not be held liable for any of the users actions.

[baggs]

TO BOTH PARTIES,
YES I WILL POST THE PCB IN BOTH GERBER FILES & A PDF FILE PICTURE, & YES I HAVE THOUGHT IT OVER AND EVEN THOUGH A GOOD LAWYER CAN GET A SIGNED WAIVER OVERTURNED IN COURT I WILL RELEASE THE KIT FOR THIS DESIGN. BUT THRU MY VERY POOR, NO ASSET'S TO BE HAD CHAPTER S CORP THUS BEING SOMEWHAT PROTECTED. BUT THE KIT WILL ONLY BE FOR THE HARD TO GET PARTS.

THE DESIGN WAS TO BE IN 2 PARTS, DRIVER BOARD & CONTROLLER BOARD BUT AFTER SOME LONG NITES OF NO SLEEP I DECIDED ON 1 BOARD. IT WILL HAVE BOTH THE CONTROLLER & DRIVER SECTION ON IT. SO NOW IF ALL YOU ARE WANTING IS TO UPGRADE YOUR UNDER POWERED UNIPOLAR DRIVER WITH THIS DESIGN JUST LEAVE OFF THE CONTROLLER PARTS. ELSE BUILD IT UP COMPLETELY IF YOU WANT THE COMPLETE PACKAGE.

I WOULD HAVE BEEN DONE WITH THIS PCB'S LAYOUT EXCEPT THAT I DID A STUPID THING & TRIED TO LAYOUT THE PCB USING MIL SPEC SPEC'S AND ENDED UP WASTEING A WHOLE DAY. MIL SPEC PUTS MY 10A HIGH CURRENT TRACES AT .250" WIDE ON 1OZ COPPER WHILE OTHER COMPANIES BUILDING SAME TYPE DEVICES USE .075" OR .100" WIDE TRACES. SO AFTER A DAY OF HITTING A STONE WALL ON CERTAIN RUNS I DECIDED TO USE THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS. SO MY 35-150VDC MOTOR VOLTAGE INPUT CONNECTOR IS CONNECTED TO THE 2 H-BRIDGES USING 0.250" TRACES. FROM THERE ON I USED .100" WIDE TRACES IN THE H-BRIDGE ALL THE WAY OUT TO THE TWO MOTOR CONNECTORS. WITH THE REST OF THE PCB USING STANDARD SIZE TRACES.
BAGGS

[joprinz]

Baggs... Great Work... I have been looking for a H-Bridge Schematic that would work with the L297...And your design spec is better than what I had in mind. Will you be releasing the Board design as well?

Joe!

[gorantec]

Hi

what happen with this project did work this scheme ?

[gorantec]

Originally Posted by gorantec Hi what happen with this project did work this scheme ?

Come one gays i need urget this driver please some one answer me can i use this schem or not

[edmondng]

the l297 only works in full/half. any idea to make it work at eight step?

[joprinz]

Baggs,
I have been watchin this project with some great interest. But I have seen most projects about Bipolar Stepper drivers above 5A would jus disappear over time... I wonder if there will EVER be a TRUE Open Source Bipolar driver that is capable of driving currents above 5A...This was a good project in that direction... I was wondering if this project is still alive???

Regards,

Joe!

[gorantec]

Baggs ,

what happen with this project ? Any news ?