Stepper motor driver card to control 6 stepper motors...?

Question

Hi,

I am looking for an external card to control 6 stepper motors concurrently.

Ideally, I would like to pass commands from computer using RS232 or USB.

The motors are small and will be used to turn light gears clockwise/anti-clockwise.

Thanks in advance for your answer.
Regards,

Answer 1

How about 3 - 2 axis cards with RS-232 inputs?

http://www.applied-motion.com/products/stepper/drives/2035xd.php

You also have to buy a driver/amplifier for each motor.

Answer 2

arduino uno is nice starter platform but it is very limited in terms of I/O. however there are other arduino boards with more I/O (arduino mega and some clones). i would not use first option, for motion you want direct/fast I/O. your stepper boards could be designed/configured to use CW/CCW or pulse and direction commands (2 pins per motor) but for 6 motors this is still 12 pins which is half of all I/O. the other option is to go for something really kickass like STM32 discovery boards. they cost $10-15, have way more I/O and processing power (32-bit, way more RAM, 5-10x higher clock etc.). F3 and F4 have FPU. not bad for $14. there is a downside though. development software is not free (and not cheap). "free" versions only compile 32k so one cannot take full advantage of the device. the other option is to use chips from TI because TI offers free software for their products. check stelaris products. the point is there are many products on the market and it was never cheaper and easier to get development kit.