Zxen
Can someone please tell me everything I need to buy to replace my servos with stepper motors and where to buy it from? It all needs to work with the EZB-V4.
Please don't say 'it depends'. Please make the best linked suggestions for my full scale humanoid. I am currently using 9380TH servos for shoulders which has a maximum torque of 34 kg.cm (472 oz.in) (3.33 N.m) and the Torxis monster servo for the ceiling rotation plate which allows for up to 111 kg.cm (1600 oz.in) (11.3 N.m) of torque. This will probably be enough torque for those heavier joints. I don't need too much speed but obviously I need at least full human dance / martial arts speed rather than only Tai Chi speed.
I would need all the 39 motors for ceiling/base rotation plate, fingers, wrist tilt and pan, elbow tilt and pan, shoulder tilt and pan, neck tilt and pan, left waist rotation, right waist rotation, hip tilt and pan, knee tilt and pan and ankle tilt and pan. I wont worry about toes, eyes or mouth at the moment. I have seen some places to buy ugly square edged stepper motors around but not good round edged ones. Obviously square mounting or shape wont fit in most human body parts. I'll be 3D printing all the housing so the steppers need to run cool and quiet and actually fit inside their respective body parts ie. a tractor motor will not fit inside a wrist, nor will an elbow motor. An elbow pan motor might fit vertically but will it's tilt brother be able to fit horizontally? Please don't recommend steppers that are only good for sewing machines.
I don't know anything at all about how to plug these 39 steppers into the EZB-V4 (or two EZB-V4s in series link?) or how to control it all with the EZ-Robot program. Dealing with servos has taken me over a year of research so I'm hoping someone will save me that time now by giving me step by step specific product links with instructions on how to wire a stepper motor system so that it just works. With servos, I plug them into the EZ-B V4 and tell them what to do (after power has been carefully redistributed). Stepper motor control seems harder.
This is what I know I need:
- the stepper motors
- at least one high current power supply
- at least one EZB-V4
I don't know anything else at all about the electronic products needed, wires needed, tiltpan systems available, housing options, etc so if you use words that laypeople don't know, I probably won't know them either. Your answer will help anyone looking to play with steppers after using servos, so please give clear instructions with trustworthy links and prices (American dollar prices will be fine even though I'm not American). Thanks so much in advance on behalf of everyone on the entire internet who ever googles how to move from servos to steppers. Most stepper information on the internet requires pre-requisite information and is vague, so the most valuable thing here is the links to the specific best choice products, their prices and how they wire together. Thanks again
Great Rafiki design! I like the idea of these motors. Do they plug into a PWM slot? Do you know the torque? Speed?
They have to be controlled by something else. There is no onboard controller, just the motor, gears and pot. I use arduino mini's to control mine. The mini takes serial commands and moves the motors to the desired location, but also reports back the location of the motor. I can query the arduino for the current location of the motor also. The Arduino drives something (sabertooth in my case) but could drive an LBridge or some other type of driving unit. LBridge would be the cheapest route to go and the arduino does all of the heavy lifting logic anyway so a sabertooth is really overkill for the purpose of driving these motors.
Thank you. And how much torque and speed, do you know?
I don't have specs. it works great for my needs. How much weight are you needing to lift? Speed, how fast do you need? Get one, try it out and decide if you want to use it. It is much stronger than any servo I have seen.