Society of Robots - Robot Forum

Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: Inigo Montoya on August 06, 2018, 01:47:26 PM

Title: How to control 5 steppers with 1 arduino?
Post by: Inigo Montoya on August 06, 2018, 01:47:26 PM
I have a small robot project.  It has 5 stepper moters, 28-BYJ48.  They use the ULN2003A motor drivers.  Each driver uses 4 pins for input, times 5 motors, that means 20 pins needed.  That doesn't even account for my need for sensors.  EEK!

Luckily, my robot only needs to use one of these motors at any one time.

1)  I can somehow switch which motor these wires are conntected to?  Is there an easy/inexpensive way to do this that won't take more than a few more pins from my aruduino to implement?
2)  Is there a better motor controllor than the ULN2003A that would control these motors using less i/o pins?
3)  Would I be better off slaving arduinos to other arduinos to get the desired result?
4)  Is there another model arduino that I should use that has a very large amount of digital pins?

I've spent the better part of the day researching this problem online, and I don't feel I'm any better off than I started.  I hope someone here knows of a good way, or at least ideas in where I should direct my research?