Hi!
This is my first post after discovering Picaxe a few weeks ago...all I can say is that this stuff is very addictive Reading about the projects on here is just amazing, and I love the way the Picaxe creators have made it cheap and accessible to anyone.
So the inevitable questions from a rookie:
I'm playing with an AXE023 motor driver board and a bipolar stepper motor from a scrapped Epson printer. I've got the thing turning backwards and forwards nicely which feels like a major achievement!
The problem is that the current consumption of the motor driver board is about 40-50ma when nothing's happening i.e. looping for input. I also have a 14M project board to experiment with, and the current usage is tiny when all is quiet. I was hoping to run this motor board off batteries for opening and closing a blind (i.e. only operate the motor twice a day) but I guess the batteries would be run down pretty quickly with that constant drain?
Is it the L293D drawing the current when all the outputs are off? Is that because the "enable" pins are hard-wired and not controlled by the Picaxe? (not that there are any outputs spare on the 08 ).
How about using another 08M as a controller for the input which then enables the motor driver board? Could this board be driven from the output of a ULN2003A?
Sorry, lot's of questions all at once...thanks for any help...
Cheers,
Jim
This is my first post after discovering Picaxe a few weeks ago...all I can say is that this stuff is very addictive Reading about the projects on here is just amazing, and I love the way the Picaxe creators have made it cheap and accessible to anyone.
So the inevitable questions from a rookie:
I'm playing with an AXE023 motor driver board and a bipolar stepper motor from a scrapped Epson printer. I've got the thing turning backwards and forwards nicely which feels like a major achievement!
The problem is that the current consumption of the motor driver board is about 40-50ma when nothing's happening i.e. looping for input. I also have a 14M project board to experiment with, and the current usage is tiny when all is quiet. I was hoping to run this motor board off batteries for opening and closing a blind (i.e. only operate the motor twice a day) but I guess the batteries would be run down pretty quickly with that constant drain?
Is it the L293D drawing the current when all the outputs are off? Is that because the "enable" pins are hard-wired and not controlled by the Picaxe? (not that there are any outputs spare on the 08 ).
How about using another 08M as a controller for the input which then enables the motor driver board? Could this board be driven from the output of a ULN2003A?
Sorry, lot's of questions all at once...thanks for any help...
Cheers,
Jim