Power supply for multiple stepper motors & drivers

1

Hi,

I’ve got a project where I need to automate the opening and closing of 4 sliding doors on a cabinet. The doors will only be small (about 300w x 200h mm) and they will be mounted on tracks with rollers. It’s not built yet, but I think the doors will move quite easily and a small stepper motor for each door will do the job.

What I plan to do is use an “Arduino Mega 2560 R3” (SKU: A000067) controller with 4 x “Small Reduction Stepper Motor - 5VDC 32-Step 1/16 Gearing” (SKU: ADA858) with 4 x “MP6500 Stepper Motor Driver Carrier, Digital Current Control” (SKU: POLOLU-2968) drivers.

I can find lots of information about powering an individual driver and stepper motor, and information about how multiple motors/drivers should be wired (i.e. star configuration, not a daisy chain).

The problem I’m having is the “sizing” of the power supply when I’m running multiple (4) drivers/motors. If I was running a single driver/motor I think I could use something like “5V DC 2A Fixed 2.1mm Tip Appliance Plugpack (SKU: AM8904)” but I’m not sure if it’s the right size (voltage and/or amps) for running 4 drivers/motors.

I’m a newbie to the electronics area and I haven’t been able to find details about the power supply for multiple stepper motors & drivers.

A related question is the physical connection to the power supply. I was planning to use a “DC Barrel Jack Adapter - Female” (SKU: FIT0151), or similar, on the DC plug of the power supply so I can screw in the power wires from the 4 driver boards and to the Arduino. Or is there a better solution for connecting the driver boards and Arduino to their power source?

Thanks,

Warren.

2

Hi Warren,

Sounds like in your situation you can just work out the power requirement for 1 motor and multiply it by 4. Power = Voltage x Current. The voltage of your supply will remain the same, so you’ll just need more current.

That said, it sounds like you might be over-engineering this. There’s a lot to be said for simple DC motors and limit switches…

Re-the power connection options; I suggest looking at something like these: