Introduction and Product Summary Page 10
BS1010 Motor Controllers Peter Norberg Consulting, Inc.
Short Feature Summary
One or two stepper motors may be independently controlled at one time.
Each motor may be either Unipolar or Bipolar (Unpolar only for the SS1010).
Each motor may draw up to 1.0 amps/winding (0.5 to 1 amp, depending on order
options, for the SS1010). Note that an external cooling fan must be used when
your motor draw exceeds 0.6 amps.
If only a single motor is connected to the board, then you can configure the board
to operate in DOUBLE POWER mode. This allows the board to operate a single
motor at twice the rated current for the board. For example, the BS1010 1 amp
product can operate a single 2 amp motor, when this feature is enabled (assuming
that the board is adequately cooled). On the SS1010 series, the 0.5 amp version
fully supports double power mode; however, the 1 amp version only supports this
mode to the extent that it allows for simultaneous identical motion between
motors.
Limit switches may optionally be used to automatically request motion stop of
either motor in either direction.
Rates of 1 to 57,600 microsteps per second are supported.
Step rates are changed by linearly ramping the rates. The rate of change is
independently programmed for each motor, and can be from 1 to > 1,600,000,000
microsteps per second per second.
All motor coordinates and rates are always expressed in programmable microunits
of up to 1/64th step. Changing stepping modes between half, full and micro-steps
does not change any other value other than which winding pairs may be driven at
the same time, and how the PWM internal software is operated.
Motor coordinates are maintained as 32 bit signed values, and thus have a range
of -2,147,483,647 through +2,147,483,647.
Both GoTo and Slew actions are fully supported.
Four modes of stepping the motor are supported:
Half steps (alternates 1 winding and two windings enabled at a time),
Full power full steps (2 windings enabled at a time)
Half power full steps (1 winding enabled at a time)
Microstep (programmable to as small as 1/64th steps, using a near-constant-
torque PWM algorithm)
A TTL “busy” signal is normally available, which can be used to see if the motors
are still moving. This information is also available from the serial connection.
Simple control of the motors may be done by switch closure. Each motor can be
told to slew left or right, or to stop by grounding the relevant input lines.
Similarly, the rate of motion can be controlled via stepping through a standard set
of rates via grounding another input.
Complete control of the motors, including total monitoring of current conditions, is
available through the USB serial connection.
An additional mode is available which allows an external computer to directly
generate step sequences on the motor control lines. Up to 57,600 steps per
second may be requested.
Runs off of a single user-provided 6.5 to 15 volt DC power supply, or two supplies
(6.5-15V for the logic circuits and 5-34V for the motors).
Any number of motors may be run off of one serial line, when used in conjunction
with one or more SerRoute controllers.
Direct support on board for ‘daisy chaining’ boards using a subset of the SerRoute
system
3 of the pins may be individually reprogrammed as 12 bit A/D inputs, TTL inputs,
or as TTL outputs. Additionally, you may reprogram one or two of those pins to be
used as voltage-based rate controls for the motors (such as using a potentiometer
to set the rate)
