Stepper motors problem

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1

Hi everyone. Now I’m construct the OpenFlexure Microscope now with stepper motors now. But now I have a problem. When I connect motors to 5V power supply, the LED on the motor board isn’t on. I’ve already successfully uploaded Arduino nano code, and I think my connections are correct. Why the motors doesn’t work?

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2

Recheck the wire order on the nano. The diagram in the instructions show the board from the opposite side that the header is soldered to.

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I’ve checked again. I’m sure I followed the digram in the instructions. The wire order are the same with diagram.

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4

Those are clear photos, you have a separate power supply for the motor boards and you have the Nano connected to the raspberry Pi using a USB cable, so that is correct. The lights on the controllers will not come on until the nano sets its output pins to energise or move the motors. With the Sangaboard firmware the motors are only energised once the first move command has been correctly received from the Pi.

It looks as though the microscope server software is not connecting to the nano. If you go to settings and then stage does it say ‘no stage connected’?

One of the most common problems would be that the Sangaboard firmware is not loaded properly on the nano. When you uploaded sketch did the upload complete without any errors?

The other issue would be that the microscope server sets up the motor controller when it first starts, it does not behave correctly if you ‘hot swap’ the motor controller. Try either powering down the Pi and restarting it, or in a terminal on the Pi execute the command ofm stop to shut down the microscope server software and then ofm start to start the server when it will also look for the motor controller.

5

I run into similar problems before using the ULN2003A drivers. So many cables, soldering, connections… :sweat: The sangaboard will be a neat and elegant solution but it comes with an extra cost. :money_mouth_face: I cant wait for it to be available!
In the meantime, I found this $4 shield that I installed in 2 of my microscopes.

https://upbusine.top/product/28byj-48-5v-uln2003a-jst-stepper-motor-driver-shield-for-arduino-nano/

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