Raspberry Pi Forums

Hello all!

I hope I'm in the right place to ask this. I'm an absolute beginner: ecology student, never touched a wire in my life until half a year ago when I began experimenting with the Arduino. I do have experience in programming, machine vision and machine learning, but my knowledge about electronics is practically non-existent.

I've recently started on my first project that requires image processing, so I've now stepped up to the Raspberry Pi. The project also requires a linear stepper motor. I've done some research and it turns out this is the first motor I've come across that you can't just attach to the Pi directly, as the signal needs to be converted by a driver circuit first. So my question here is.. what exactly is a driver circuit, what does it do, and how do I know which one I need for my particular stepper motor?

I'm sure this comes off as an absolute newbie question and I feel kind of silly posting it here, but I've no one around me who knows about the Pi and online tutorials all speak in a technical language I do not yet understand. I'm probably going to be asking a bunch of dumb follow-up questions as well, so please bear with me, haha. I really want to understand what I'm getting into before diving in head-first and burning stuff out. :p

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hi.

So without knowing which linear stepper motor you are using its impossible for anyone to help you.

you need to post a link to the data sheet for the motor in question on at least a link to were you purchased it from so we can see what's required.

All stepper motors and standard brushed DC motors require some sort of driver/interface circuit because the pi gpio pins cant supply sufficient voltage or current to drive motors.

Typical motor driver would be an L298N that will drive both DC brushed motor and some 4 wire stepper motors, the uln2003 or uln2803A are also often used to drive small 5 wire stepper motors.

Ah, ok! I haven't actually purchased the motor yet, but I've currently got this one in mind: https://www.omc-stepperonline.com/linea ... &order=ASC (datasheet: https://www.omc-stepperonline.com/downl ... 4E-32G.pdf).

I might end up alternatively going with this one https://www.omc-stepperonline.com/linea ... &order=ASC but it fortunately seems to have the same electrical specifications as the other.

You could probably drive those stepper motors using the L298N.

But there are a number of stepper motor driver boards out there ,
just try googling stepper motor driver board.

Alright, thank you! I'll make sure to look into the L298N.

I've also googled around a little more, and I found this page:
https://www.pololu.com/category/120/ste ... or-drivers with a lot of specifications for different drivers. I see that they all have different operating voltages alongside different max and peak currents. For my own understanding, is there a general rule of thumb to determine which driver board would be best for a specific motor?

For instance, the motor I'm planning on buying has a rated current of 0.4A alongside a maximum voltage of 12V. Would that mean I could, theoretically, select any driver that has a min voltage below and a max voltage above 12V, alongside a max continuous current of at least 0.4A?