mommus
Aerospace
- Oct 10, 2019
- 2
We have been asked to design a prototype water supply module with quite tight space requirements. Our electrical guys are busy with a larger project so I (a lowly design engineer) have been asked to either look at developing a control solution for the two stepper motors in the module myself, or farm it out to a company to design an integrated controller board.
I thought it worth asking what the forum members would recommend on a few points -
1. I'm not an electrical person really, especially with regard to steppers and their associated gubbins... is it really practical to get up to speed on them in a short timeframe (2 weeks ish)
2. If we buy some OTS bits, should we aim to get an integrated controller, or buy separate controllers and drivers?
The motors will be two small 50x50mm steppers, and the space we have to fit the controller into is about the size of three or four iphones stacked on top of each other.
One of the motors only needs to move through 90 degrees, and the other will move a piston valve linearly by 3-4cm. Consequently it seems excessive to use $200+ driver units for each motor (as recommended by motor manuf.)
Any thoughts appreciated.
I thought it worth asking what the forum members would recommend on a few points -
1. I'm not an electrical person really, especially with regard to steppers and their associated gubbins... is it really practical to get up to speed on them in a short timeframe (2 weeks ish)
2. If we buy some OTS bits, should we aim to get an integrated controller, or buy separate controllers and drivers?
The motors will be two small 50x50mm steppers, and the space we have to fit the controller into is about the size of three or four iphones stacked on top of each other.
One of the motors only needs to move through 90 degrees, and the other will move a piston valve linearly by 3-4cm. Consequently it seems excessive to use $200+ driver units for each motor (as recommended by motor manuf.)
Any thoughts appreciated.