Don Kleinschnitz Do you have a simple circuit for controlling a stepper on a

Lasers
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1

@donkjr Do you have a simple circuit for controlling a stepper on a Z table? All I need are up and down buttons to control the stepper via an external driver.

2

Typical step-stick type drivers have two pins you care about, step and direction. Simplest possible circuit would be a switch for direction forward/back-high/low, and a button to do a single step. Anything more than that and youll very quickly find its simpler to just use a cheap microcontroller to read the buttons and pulse the driver.

3

Here is how I did it:

4

Thanks @donkjr I found another way as well while I was searching that uses an Arduino Nano, 2 buttons, and an easy stepper driver board, all parts I already had kicking around. Total cost about $20 . But I will check out your method just to learn something new. :slight_smile:

5

@funinthefalls I’m interested in a similar thing. Can you post your version?

6

Sure, I’ll do it tonight.