Remember those DC motors and all you need to do is connect the positive and negative leads to the battery and then holla starts running. But when we start working on more complex projects, these DC motors don\'t seem to meet your needs. . . . Yes, I mean there is no efficiency, precision and the most important torque for any gear deceleration. The story begins with my plan to build a semi-automatic drill that can help you drill through objects like a normal drill, but with the help of the 1 feet pedal you can hold the object without the aid hand, with your hands. To make a long story short, I need a motor that can move the drill bit up and down precisely and also provide a lot of torque. Not getting all of this from a simple DC motor, I decided to use the stepping motor. Yes, the one with four wires, that\'s all I know. Therefore, in this instruction manual, we will make a controller for this four-line stepping motor, which enables us to control the speed and direction of the motor without using the micro-controller. The goal of this project is to simplify the use of the stepping motor by manufacturing a modular controller that can easily drive the stepping motor without the need to install a micro-controller to do the job. The controller we are going to build is based on the A4988 stepping motor driver. Relatively cheap, easy to find in any online e-store. Now, before we dive into more details, take a look at the data sheet for the step drive. The driver needs to input PWM on the stepping pin to operate the motor. An increase in the frequency of the PWM signal will result in a higher RPM and vice versa. To control the direction of the motor, the Dir pin of the driver can be switched between the VCC and the ground terminals. The drive works under 5 v (VDD) VMOT represents the voltage of the motor, the voltage range from 8-35VDC. The coils of the motor will be connected to 1A, 2A, 1B, 2B connections respectively. Now, in order to generate the desired PWM signal, we will use the 555 timer IC. Here we will use the 10 k potentiometer to change the output frequency of the PWM signal, which will help us to control the rotation speed. The rest is a bunch of free components. After finishing the schematic, I have done a preliminary test on the breadboard and everything seems to be perfect. The motor is accurate, efficient and has large torque. But the problem is that it\'s a mess on the breadboard and it\'s not an option to do it on the performance board. So, I have decided to design the PCB for this controller and it will take some time, but I have made sure all the connections are correct, and I also added all the free components to use this controller as easily as possible. Now, as the PCB design was completed, I went to Safeway and uploaded my Gerber file to get the PCB. After going through a series of options, I ordered my pcb. They offer high quality PCBs at amazing prices. Thank you so much Safeway for making this project possible, so make sure you order custom printed circuit boards on their website. The link to the Board pcb and the Gerber file is: The list of tools and components for this project is as follows: Required Tools: step motor driver: material (BOM File) : PCBs arrive within a week with perfect quality. Now, when I put my hand on the board, I collected all the components and started to assemble them as instructed on the board. The best thing to spend so much time designing the motherboard is that now you can make as many copies as you need, and you just have to drop the components that are shown on the motherboard. When the board is ready, I plug the 555 timer and the stepping motor driver in place and connect the motor to the board. After that, I used a pair of crocodile clips to power the board and connected the 12 v battery. Once the controller is connected to a 12 v battery. The motor starts to turn. Everything seems to run as expected. The rotation direction can be changed by switching the switch, and the rotation speed can be controlled by turning the knob of the potentiometer.
