PICStep Microstepping Controller
I've updated the user gallery a little. I've added a few more photos and things. Have a look see!
You can contribute too by clicking on the little PayPal icon (man I'm starting to sound like dan@dansdata.com :)!
Fixed a missing part that I forgot to put on the opto output board. Should be fully functional now.
Fixed the issues with the Version 3.1 PICStep design. Now have incorporated the status LED's onto the opto-isolated breakout board instead.
New breakout board is dual layer (sorry!) for ease of design. I plan to get some professionally made along with a few of the V3.1 PICStep's
To see the changes look at the top of this page!
Due to me stupidly testing this Version 3.0 design with an opto-isolated breakout you may be suffer damage to your parallel port cause by the status LED's drawing to much power with the 270ohm drop resistors. I'm going to modify the design to include some form of buffer driver to stop this problem. Until I rework the PCB design please don't build these boards. The V2.1 boards are identical plus the ICSP and minus the status LED's
After much feedback I've re-done the boards again! This time no ICSP socket and DIP switches, a few status LEDs for Step, Direction, Brake, CoilA Dir, and CoilB Dir. This update should make for a slightly neater board with even less wire links! :)
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| picstep_v3.jpg | 123.72 KB |
I've written some simply assembly instructions and a few notes on using PICStep in a text file you can download.
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| building_instructions.txt | 6.09 KB |
After having so many people build these boards I thought it fitting to have a little gallery of their hard work. You can see the gallery here.
Plus also a very big thank you to Terry, Shaun, Bill and others for their generous PayPal contributions! You can contribute too by clicking on the little PayPal icon (man I'm starting to sound like dan@dansdata.com :)!
A minor bug fix has been released. The latest is now PICStep V1.01
Thanks to Bob Weiss for pointing out my error. The previous version of the firmware has a small bug that doesn't effect the usage of PICStep, but is incorrect code. In the main loop I used a "call" instead of a "goto" for a few check routines. So what will happen is the 8 position call stack would overflow but causing no harm to the operation. This bug doesn't cause/do anything it's mostly cosmetic and thankfully has now been fixed. Update if you want to, but the previous version still works just fine.
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| picstep_v1.01.zip | 10.07 KB |