Exact Position of Stepper Motors Arduino

[kvaughn888]

I am trying to set the exact position of my stepper motors to be able to read the time in and then if the time is at X, set the position at Y, so on. I am doing this to set up a auto dimmer on my aquarium lights. I have the arduino mega board with the stepper motor and driver. Please help

Thank you,
Kevin Vaughn

 

[johniii]

Kevin exact position won't work. You will need to code time equals x degrees. I will try to mess with the code this evening. There is a tutorial @ arduino.cc

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[johniii]

Degrees will be steps

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[johniii]

http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/Stepper">http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/Stepper</a>. Here is the stepper library commands.

You will need to use "if" "else" statements. You will probably need a rtc chip to keep time. As the mega only has millisecond timer.

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[ichthyoid]

Why not use an encoder?

I used to sell motion control, that's how we did it when you need to know position.

 

[grouper therapy]

ichthyoid;878011 wrote: Why not use an encoder?

I used to sell motion control, that's how we did it when you need to know position.

With steppers or servos or both?

 

[kvaughn888]

Steppers

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[ichthyoid]

grouper therapy;878114 wrote: With steppers or servos or both?

We used encoders on both Dave.

I even had a line of steppers with the drive and encoder both built into the motor housing, although it was for lower torque applications.
(Quicksilver, I believe is the name)

If the customer was price sensitive (often the case when using steppers) they would often attempt to keep track of position by counting steps. That's fine until something slips and jumps or lags steps. Then you have to 're-home'.

 

[ichthyoid]

I made the real money on servo driven systems, mostly from Parker-Hannafin.

Arguably the best full line motion control source available. It's a division of Danaher.