User Manual
Stepper motors rotate all the way around but only one 'step' at a time. Usually there's a few hundred steps per turn,
making them great for precision motion. The trade off is they're very slow compared to servos or steppers. Also, unlike
servos they don't know 'where' they are in the rotation, they can only step forward and backwards.
There's
two
kinds of stepper motors: bipolar (4-wire) and unipolar (5 or 6-wire). We can control both kinds but with
some restrictions!
The voltage we use to power the motor is 5V only, so 5V power steppers are best, but sometimes you can drive
12V steppers at a slower/weaker rate
You can drive one bi-polar stepper motor via the Motor port
You can drive two uni-polar stepper motors, one via the Motor port and one via the Drive port
That means you have have two uni-polar steppers or one uni and one bi-polar. But you cannot drive two bi-polar
steppers.
Bi-Polar or Uni-Polar Motor Port
The Crickit Motor port can run a unipolar (5-wire and 6-wire) or bipolar (4-wire) stepper. It cannot run steppers with any
other # of wires!
The code is the same for unipolar or bipolar motors, the wiring is just slightly different.
Unlike DC motors, the wire order does matter. Connect one coil to the Motor pair #1. Connect the other coil to the
Motor pair #2
If you have a bipolar motor, connect one motor coil to #1 and the other coil to #2 and do not connect to the
center GND block.
If you are using a unipolar motor with 5 wires, connect the common wire to the center GND port.
If you are using a unipolar motor with 6 wires, you can connect the two 'center coil wires' together to the center
GND port
If you are using our "12V" bi-polar
stepper, (https://adafru.it/BxE) wire in this order: red,
yellow, (skip GND center), green, gray
© Adafruit Industries
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-crickit-creative-robotic-interactive-
construction-kit
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