Firmware to turn a stepper motor into servo motor: see http://misfittech.net for hardware!
If you have a MKS Servo42, this firmware is not fully tested. MKS has taken this firmware but has not provided source back and hardware designs back to the community. Test submissions are appreciated. Test at you own RISK!
If you want to support the work on the firmware and hardware consider buying hardware from www.misfittech.net or buying me a beer using the donation button.
Arduino install for building firmware
Further Details and to purchase Hardware
The smart stepper uses a command line interface where the prompt is “:>”
The help command will return a list of commands that the smart stepper supports.
This command will print out the 200 point calibration table. This is useful if you are doing firmware development and do not want to calibrate each time you update firmware. You can take this table and copy it into the nonvolatile.cpp file as shown below
This will run a 200 point calibration of the encoder.
This will test the calibration and report the maximum error in degrees.
This command gets/sets the number of microsteps the smart stepper will use for the step command and the step pin. The number of microsteps does not affect the resolution of the controller but rather how fine you can set the position.
This will move the motor one step clockwise, the step size is based on the current microstep setting. To move the motor counterclockwise use “step 1”. To move the motor clockwise 16 steps used “step 0 16” to move motor counterclockwise 16 steps use “step 1 16”
This commands disable/enables feedback control loop. The plan is to discountinue this command in the future and use the “controlmode” command to put controller in open or one of the many closed loop operational modes.
Reads the current motor position and reports it as degrees.
This command will read and report the AS5047D internal registers for diagnostic purposes.
This command sets the Kp, Ki, and Kd terms for the simple positional PID controller.
This command sets the Kp, Ki, and Kd terms for the positional PID controller.
This command sets the Kp, Ki, and Kd terms for the velocity PID controller.
This sets the velocity to rotate motor when unit is configured for velocity PID mode of operation.
This command will put the microprocessor in the boot loader mode. Alternatively this can be done by double pressing the reset button.
This erases the calibration and other system and motor parameters such that unit is reset to the factory ship state. After this command the unit will need to be calibrated to the motor again.
This command sets which direction the motor will rotate when direction pin is pulled high. The direction pin is only sampled when the step pin has a rising edge. ‘dirpin 0’ will set the motor to rotate clockwise when dir pin is high ‘dirpin 1’ will set the motor to rotate counter-clockwise when dir pin is high
Gets set the maximum number of degrees of error that is acceptable, any posistioning error about the error limit will assert the error pin, when error pin is set as error output. For example:
:>errorlimit 1.8
Will set the error limit to 1.8 degrees.
Gets/Sets the feedback controller mode of operation. The command takes an integer from 0 through 4 to set the control mode per table below:
- Controller off - 0 -- this is not currently used
- Open-Loop - 1 -- this is open loop with no feedback
- Simple PID - 2 -- simple positional PID, which is factory default
- Positional PID - 3 -- current based PID mode, requires tuning for your machine
- Velocity PID - 4 -- velocity based PID, requires tuning for your machine and speed range
If you are unsure what you are doing leave unit in the Simple PID mode of operation.
This sets the maximum current that will be pushed into the motor. To set the current for maximum of 2.0A you would use command “maxcurrent 2000” as the argument is in milliAmps.
For the Simple Positional PID mode the minimal current (ie current with no positional error) is the hold current. You set this current based on the required holding torque you need for your application. The higher the hold current, the hotter and noisier the motor will be but also the larger the holding torque. For the Positional PID mode the PID tuning params have to be set correctly such that the control loop will dynamically determine the holding torque. This tuning of the PID can be difficult, hence the simple PID mode will work most of the time out of the box by setting maximum current and holding current.
The firmware always uses a positive angle as a clockwise rotation. A stepper motor however could have wiring done with one coil reversed wired, which will cause motor to normally operate in opposite direction. The Smart Stepper firmware will detect the motor wiring direction, using the encoder, and the firmware will compensate for a reverse wired motor. The reverse or forward wiring of a motor is detected on first power up after factory reset. If the wiring changes after that you can compensate using this command. HOWEVER it is better to do a factory reset and recalibrate motor if wiring changes.
The Smart Stepper firmware will with first power on after factory reset detect the number of full steps per rotation for the stepper motor and store in flash memory. This command will read this parameter from flash and allow user to change this parameter if motor is changed. HOWEVER it is better to do a factory reset and recalibrate motor if motorchanges.
The move command will request the motor to move to an absolute angle position. Optionally the user can specify the rotational speed (RPMs) by which the move should happen. For example if the current motor position is at angle 0 and you issue ‘move 3600” the motor will turn 10 rotations clockwise to angle of 3600 degrees. If issue the ‘move 3600’ again nothing will happen as motor is already at angle 3600. If motor is at angle 0 and user issues the command ‘move 3600 20’ then motor will move to 10 rotations clockwise to angle of 3600 at a rate of 20 RPMs.
If user issues a move command that takes a long time and wants to stop the move before completion then user can issue the stop command command which will stop a move operation.
This command will take the current motor position and set it to absolute angle of zero. Note that if you are in the middle move it will take the position at the time of the command and use it, thus it is recommend a move be stopped or wait for completion before issuing the setzero.
This command will toggle output of binary data.
This command will display the time it takes for a single processing loop to execute.
This command displays the motor error in degrees difference from the stored eeprom value at motor power up.
Displays the location of the shaft angle in degrees at motor power on.
Forces the eeprom to store all current values in ram to eeprom.
Forces the eeprom to write the current shaft angle overwriting the stored location from powerup.
Overwrites the current shaft angle in the motion planner.
Forces the smart stepper to reboot
If using built in homing routine (command "home") this will specify the amount of current applied when motor is moving during homing operation when homepin is logic active.EXPERIMENTAL USE WITH CAUTION
Allows setting of pin for current limited enable for homing. This triggers a current drop during homing movements. Current set using command "homecurrent". This pin is pulled low to activate. EXPERIMENTAL USE WITH CAUTION
Currently unused.
Tells the motion controller to move motor until the home switch (enable pin) is pulled low. (Only on boards 3/21/2017 or newer) (Must be enabled in firmware). For example:
:>home 360 0.5
Will move up to 360 degrees at 0.5 RPM. EXPERIMENTAL USE WITH CAUTION
Displays the binary states of all pins (Step, Dir, Enable, Error, A3, TX, RX)
Sets or displays the error pin mode. Allows someone to swap usage of the error pin as an enable pin on older boards. (Not compiled for use on boards 3/21/2017 or newer since they have separate enable and error pins) (Must be enabled in firmware) Modes are:
- "0" - Enable mode, active high (digital input).
- "1" - Enable mode, active low (digital input).
- "2" - Error mode, active low (digital output). Active level is reached when there is an angle error.
- "3" - Error mode, bi-directional, (digital input/output open collector). (Not currently used).
Sets or displays the binary state of the enable pin. Acceptable values are 0 or 1 For example:
:>errorpin 1
Will set the error pin on the terminal block to output a logic high when the error level is reached
Sets or displays the enable pin mode. Allows someone to swap usage of the enable pin as an error pin on older boards. (Only on boards 3/21/2017 or newer since they have separate enable and error pins) (Must be enabled in firmware) Modes are:
- "0" - Enable mode, active high (digital input).
- "1" - Enable mode, active low (digital input).
- "2" - Error mode, active low (digital output). Active level is reached when there is an angle error.
- "3" - Error mode, bi-directional, (digital input/output open collector). (Not currently used).
Displays the current motor shaft error in degrees.
Displays the number of steps that have been seen from the DIR pin.
Sets if syslog debugging will be output on USB serial. Allowed values are 0 for disable, 1 for enable.
The smart stepper related hardware is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 License as much of the work is based on Mechaduino project by J. Church.
https://github.com/jcchurch13/Mechaduino-Firmware
The firmware is licensed as GPL V3 for non-commercial use. If you want to release a closed source version of this product, please contact MisfitTech.net for licensing details.