Motor Controls and Magazines

January 27, 2020

Motors

I’ve recently started a new roadtest for Element14 of a 2 phase stepper motor driver from Trinamic. It’s a much simpler chip than the previous one I’ve tested but should still be interesting to see how it can reduce power consumption over a simpler setup. The chip is the tiny black square on the right-hand board just above and to the left of the blue circle.

My plan is to look at the power used by this in comparison to a simple full step/H-Bridge driver. So I put a test rig together using the Element14 Presents breadboard I was sent as a Christmas present. I hope to have the testing done in the next week or so.

Magazines

I wandered into WHSmiths to see if they had a copy of Linux Format #258 which I was interested in as Les Pounder had reviewed a couple of new Arduino boards. However, when I got there, they were already onto #259 so I bought a Practical Electronics instead as there was a motor driver and a USB Keyboard adapter on the cover.

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In parallel to that, I’d order a copy of Elektor as it was also covering motor drivers, in this case, a 1Kw AC Drive. I don’t think I’ve read either magazine for about 20 years although I was subscribed to PE whilst at college/Dowty. There were a few noticeable changes. Firstly PE now has surface mount projects and I would say that the projects did seem to be more complex than those I remember. Elektor I always though as a professional magazine now seems to be recognising the hobby makers too and there was a lovely circuit for a capacitance meter with the board designed by Saar Drimer from Boldport. However, there were some old classics with a Geiger counter with a diode capacitor voltage ladder, something I remember from an Ioniser project from the PE of my youth. Both magazines were an interesting read so if you’ve not visited them for a while you might find something new.

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I wonder if any of you have found that the magazine projects seem to repeat over the years? Have you shifted to surface mount yet? I think 2020 will be the year I give it a proper go and I’ve been looking at the SMD challenge kits that light up LEDs.

By Andy from Workshopshed One Comment

  Posted in: Electronics Tags: magazine, stepper motor