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DIY focuser w/o Motor HAT or PiFace?

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Hi folks,

I have just bought a bunch of 28BYJ-48 stepper motors and each came with its own ULN2003 driver board ( Amazon link here ). I can control the motors with Python by connecting the driver board pins to some GPIO pins on my RPi. My question is: do I need some kind of hardware interface between the RPi and the motors (such as Adafruit motor HAT or PiFace digital) even if I already have the driver boards? Will I be able to perform automatic focusing within Ekos using e.g. Astroberry Focuser simply by connecting the driver boards to the GPIO pins?
Thanks!

Maurizio
6 years 6 months ago #19008

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Hi Maurizio,

See post from Radek. I have been successfully running that stepper with the PiFace, no need for additional driver (part of PiFace already).

indilib.org/forum/general/699-astroberry...elease.html?start=12

Yes, autofocusings works!

see also www.instructables.com/id/Controlling-a-s...h-the-Raspberry-Pi-/

Best, Helge
6 years 6 months ago #19009

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Hi Helge, thanks a lot!
So I need to get myself PiFace Digital 2, right? Can it handle two motors in parallel (I plan to have for the guider scope, too)?

Maurizio
6 years 6 months ago #19012

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I also made a 3D-printed focuser using the BYJ reference you mentioned. Works great because the angle step matches nicely the micro knob of my ED80T. However there's a consequent backlash on that stepper reference, which often makes Ekos slow down searching for the HFR minimum. But while the gaussian fit isn't that efficient because of that, the iterative method works pretty well. Being new at CAD design, I'm very proud of that first result :)

-Eric

Envoyé de mon ASUS_Z00AD en utilisant Tapatalk
6 years 6 months ago #19013

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Hi Maurizio,

In principle, the script makes provisions for two steppers, but for the PiFace digital2, the second routine ends up on the Input Pins of the PiFace digital (I think the script was not written for that version of the PiFace - @ Radek, hope I am not mistaken).

The first stepper is on the output pins 4-7, ideally the second stepper could be run on output pins 0-3, but I am lacking of programming skills to re-direct the routing from the input- to the output pins.

Best, Helge
6 years 6 months ago #19014

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Dear Helge,
if I understand correctly, I must load the astroberry-piface driver, right? Can you confirm that it supports the PiFace Digital 2? My RPi3 runs on Ubuntu Mate, but as I read here ( indilib.org/forum/general/699-astroberry...elease.html?start=24 ) it may not work on Ubuntu Mate.
6 years 6 months ago #19015

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Dear Maurizio,

I am using the "astroberry server", see www.indilib.org/forum/general/2183-astroberry-server/16419.html - which is fantastic. I think it is based on Ubuntu Mate.

It already has the PiFace focuser-driver on board. In a previous post, Radek mentioned that he might also onboard the "astroberry focuser" in a future release, so you could alternatively connect the stepper via a driver board to the Raspberry.

If you are interested, this focuser via arduino nano hansastro.github.io/Focuser/

is also a nice way to manage the focuser, with a 12v bipolar stepper, which has a little bit more torque than the 28byj48 stepper (which I started with).

Best, Helge
6 years 6 months ago #19022

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This is correct. It was originally written for the first revision of PiFace board. I think I will need to release another version for PiFace Digital so the second focuser is available.

Radek
Last edit: 6 years 6 months ago by Radek Kaczorek.
6 years 6 months ago #19041

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I've been busy trying to get myself a PiFace Digital 2 but no luck, these little things seem to disappear faster than they are supplied. Should definitely get one asap. In the meantime I have received a Nema17 motor and a4988 driver board. I have tried to connect the board to the RPi3 as per instructions in INDI Astroberry website, but no luck. When I load the indi_rpifocus driver in indiserver, no Astroberry Focuser tab will show up in Ekos. I have installed INDI Astroberry from the .deb file at sourceforge.net/projects/astroberry/ . Any idea why it's not working?

Maurizio
6 years 6 months ago #19076

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Dear Maurizio,

I am sure you double-checked the stepper pins etc already? Whenever testing a new stepper (and nothing happened), it was the pins. Another cause of errror could be the current control VREF, to limit the current. Does all this match your power supply and stepper?

I also wanted to test the rpi_focuser, but struggling to install - see my other post.

Best, Helge
6 years 6 months ago #19079

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I am going to double check all connections with a multimeter then. One thing that is not clear to me is if I should connect the RESET pin with the SLEEP pin, which is in turn connected to GPIO23 on the RPi3. It does not say anything on the Readme file ( github.com/rkaczorek/astroberry-diy/blob/master/README ), but it is usually connected as shown in many other images on Google (see here ).

Regarding Vref, it should be measured between the GDN pin powering the board and the top of the potentiometer, right? The Nema 17 has a nominal current limit of 1.5 A monophase (does it mean "per coil"?). What value should Vref be set to? 3 V?

Do I need to power the motor via Vmot (nominal tension 3.45 V) or is the board powering it via Vdd?

Sorry for all these questions, which you might find stupid or obvious, but this is the first time I deal with stepper motors.

Maurizio
6 years 6 months ago #19101

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I have double checked all connections and they're alright. This is what I get when I load indi_rpifocus in indiserver:
2017-09-05T17:29:58: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: pid=2008 rfd=3 wfd=6 efd=7
2017-09-05T17:29:58: Driver indi_asi_ccd: pid=2009 rfd=4 wfd=9 efd=10
2017-09-05T17:29:58: Driver indi_lx200autostar: pid=2010 rfd=5 wfd=12 efd=13
2017-09-05T17:29:58: Driver indi_rpifocus: pid=2011 rfd=8 wfd=15 efd=16
2017-09-05T17:29:58: listening to port 7624 on fd 11

What could the problem be? Could it be that my Ekos client (running on my Mac) does not recognize the driver? I am still puzzled by the SLEEP-RESET connection dilemma.
6 years 6 months ago #19107

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