Hi, i’m new to this and would be great to get a bit of help to guide me in the right direction
Basically i need to turn a wheel that is moving a chain which is opening small louvers on top of a dome structure.
I need to replace the motor which is 30 years old and a bipolar stepper motor will do the job
I will need the mounting hub for the sharft, i will connect this to the wheel that move the chain
The questions that I have are:
I will need to connect the motor to 240V. Do I need a transformer to convert the power from 240V down to 12V?
I need to be able to control the motor to turn clock and anticlockwise. do i need a controller that does that? i guess so, what is the one that i need and is there an electrical scheme to follow? I guess i will have to connect the 240 to the controller via a transformer
That motor is quoted as 3.4V, not 12V. However it likely operates OK over a range of voltages, but this should be confirmed with the supplier. A controller will require either 5V or 3.3V. If you go with the configuration described for that motor you need 5V for an Arduino UNO and 5V for the stepper driver. If you select a 12V power adapter then you can run the motor and Arduino off that, and run the stepper driver off the 5V output from the Arduino. An example is:
(12V 5A Power supply and Adapter cable bundle | Buy in Australia | CE09340 | Core Electronics)
You haven’t indicated how you would control the motor, but the Arduino will handle a variety of simple inputs, such as buttons or a two-way push-push switch. If you want to do it from your phone or PC that requires slightly different hardware. If you can work out exactly how much the stepper has to move, and if it always starts from the same position, then you can put the movement information in the Arduino code. Or, if you can watch the motor as it moves and use a switch to control the direction and distance, then that is simple code. If that information is not available then you would need sensors to indicate the position of the shutter so the controller can work out which way to move and by how much, and that is a little more complicated.
Have you confirmed that the available torque from that motor is sufficient for that shutter?
Welcome to the forum! what an interesting problem you have before you! @Jeff105671 has raised some excellent considerations, please give these a tackle.
A great starting point would be to describe the motor you are replacing, its 30 years old so I don’t suspect there will be too much info about but hopefully we can fill in the blanks.
Assuming that you are going to be programming this some micro switches could be used to identify your end points. If your stepper is accurate (doesn’t slip primarily), you could get away with one to define what closed looks like and drive the stepper a set amount of steps to open it.
There are still plenty of unknowns we need before we can get properly cracking. Answer the questions in Jeff’s reply and we can go from there!
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