October 4, 2009 - Mosaic Industries offers a low cost modular solution to stepper motor control, ideal for space-constrained applications. The Stepper Motor Control Kit integrates an embedded single board computer, the QCard; a plug-in module, the Power I/O Wildcard; and a stepper motor control software package. For ease of prototyping, Mosaic also offers an optional screw terminal board for rapid connect/disconnect of stepper motors or other devices.
This modular design is well suited to both small and large applications, instrumentation and automation projects, and where cost and physical size are critical.Mosaic’s tiny instrument controller, the QCard packs a programmable computer, up to 1 megabyte of memory, communications, analog and digital I/O, and an expansion I/O bus on a 2"x2.5" low-cost board. On-board I/O includes 8 digital I/O lines with counter/timer capabilities, 8 analog inputs, a fast synchronous SPI serial interface, and dual RS232/485 serial ports.
An optional real-time clock tracks the calendar and time of day and battery-backs the 128K RAM.Plugged directly onto the QCard is the Power I/O Wildcard. This heavy-duty module provides eight high-current outputs and four high-voltage digital inputs. Inputs and outputs are optically isolated to ±2500 volts. The Power I/O Wildcard controls four phase, unipolar, permanent magnet stepper motors.
Included in the kit is a standard size, 200-steps-per-revolution, NEMA 17 (1.7 in. square footprint, 5 mm shaft diameter), 12 V stepper motor. This sized motor is commonly used in household appliances, lab equipment, stage lighting devices, and in various industrial control applications. The software package provided with the kit makes it easy to manage ramping, speed and step control of the stepper motor.
Pre-coded library routines enable the user to specify starting/jogging speeds, as well as acceleration and deceleration rates for the stepper motor. Simple functions can be called on to specify speed, change speed and define the number of steps to be taken. The ramp-up, steady speed and ramp-down profiles are generated, and a 32-bit step counter is automatically updated for use by your application program.The Kit is competitively priced at $299 (without the stepper motor) or $339.00 (with the stepper motor included).
