Motor Controls

How to use UIROBOT stepper drivers and controllers in a quite easy way?

Here we want to take about ten minutes to give customers quick instructions who decide to apply our stepper drivers and stepper controllers:

UIROBOT now have three types of stepper motor drives and controls units, they are UIM24002/24004/24008 parallel port stepper drivers, UIM24104/24108 serial port stepper controllers with RS232 and UIM24204/24208 intelligent stepper controllers with CANBus.

There are six terminals on the parallel port UIM24002/24004/24008 stepper driver, let the terminals face you, the first two terminals are for power supply, marked in red and black for positive and negative. After that, connect the third and the fifth terminals with Vcc and Pulse, then you can drive you stepper motor in one direction, if you want to change the direction, please connect the DIR the fourth terminal. The sixth terminal is for SHUT DOWN which is for energy saving and heat output decreasing. Micro Stepping is changed by the DIP switch beside the terminal. The new version (V2) UIROBOT parallel port stepper driver is with Automatic Current Reduction function, it has released to the market.

Coming to the bottom of this parallel port stepper driver, you will find there is a trimmer for changing the output current from the stepper driver to the stepper motor through the Mapped Voltage. You’d better set the output current same with your stepper motor rated current for getting the correct holding torque. There are four holes on the PCB board, that’s for connecting stepper motor. You have to solder the lead wires from the stepper motor here. How to connect this stepper driver to a stepper motor with 6 lead wires or 8 lead wires (Unipolar Stepper Motor), please write us letter. Note: we have a final customer who gave us a solution to avoid the soldering work to customers is that UIROBOT will soldering a 3.5mm terminal for stepper motor. (A special project, having interests on this, please contact us for more.)

There are five terminals on the serial port UIM24104/24108 stepper controllers with RS232, when face the terminals, the first two terminals are the same with the parallel port stepper driver for power supply. And then from the third to the fifth terminals are for RX, TX and GND (three wires communication method) from a RS232 unit. Take RS232 Cable as example, you have to find out the RX, TX and GND Pins. The Micro Stepping of the serial port stepper controller could be changed by the DIP switch and also by software. The last time changed by software will be stored into the stepper controller till next changing even though power on/off. The output current is controlled by software. There is a situation that you don’t have a RS232 connector on your potable computer. How to connect this serial port stepper controller to your PC by USB? What you need is a USB 2.0 to RS232 Cable. Through this cable you’ll find it’s easy to control your analysis equipment by PC. Why don’t we develop a stepper controller with USB which called USB stepper controller? That because we think USB is not well applied to industry motion controlling, USB communication method could be interrupted very easily.

There are only four terminals on the CANBus stepper controllers UIM24204/24208. The first two terminals are for power supply as the same. The third and the fourth are for CANH and CANL (two wires communication method). Micro Stepping could be rewritten by DIP switch and software. The output current is controlled by software. How to build up your local network is the key part. You need two pairs of group wires. One of the two pairs of group wires will help to transfer power and the other pair for signal from the CAN/RS232 Converter to every stepper controller in the local network.

We give every stepper motor with controller an address one after another by software, instructions:

SETADR=5; SETADR=6; etc,.

Connect more than 2 stepper motor with controller (up to 112 motors with controllers) with Computer through our CAN/RS232 Converter by DB9, DB15 or DB25 (You also could connect with your PC by USB, a USB 2.0 to RS232 Cable is needed.) and power them on.

Then you connect one of the motor with controller communication wires (CANH, CANL), after that you give the above set address instruction through software.

After you SETADR=5;, disconnect the communication wire of ADR5, connect the other set motor with controller and give it ADR6, continue to make it all out.

After all the above SETADR, you connect all the two pairs of group wires to stepper motors and stepper controllers, and then you can give instructions like below:

ADR=5;

CUR=20; (2 amps)

MCS=16; (You also can change it by the DIP switch on the controller)

SPD=1000;

STP=10000;

ENA;

(The above is for control stepper motors individually.)

If you want to control all the stepper motors in the network, give instructions like this:

Gcur=20;

Gmcs=16;

Gspd=1000;

Gena;

The above is the quick instruction to use UIROBOT stepper drivers and stepper controllers. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

Easy CNC Stepper Motor Driver