This tutorial shows how to use the ln298 with brushed or brushless motors. It, together with the info from Jeremie should be enough information to pull it together for you. https://synthiam.com/Community/Tutorials/130/1

More likely than not Jeremie will see this thread after the weekend and provide additional input.

Alan

@castlephelps "his link to myrobotlab doesn't work" You can always google it.....

Hi @Castlephelps,

First off, nice to meet to you!

The sainsmart L293 shield is a clone of adafruit's motor shield design and uses a 74HC595 shift register to control the L293 H-bridges. This cuts down on the amount of control signal pins needed but does complicate the process of sending the signals if you aren't familiar with shift registers.

While the sainsmart shield can drive some smaller steppers and DC gear motors, as Alan mentioned, the L298 is a better choice. It can handle higher voltages and current.

Feel free to ask questions on here @Castlephelps I'm always browsing the forums whenever I have a spare moment

Hi Jeremie!

I am very excited to make your acquaintance! My robot project started last Christmas when I received an EZ-B development kit / but I soon discovered that the components weren't beefy enough so now I have finalized my design and am now welding arms and wanting to drive a telescoping arm with large stepper motors and be able to control how rad and how fast the stepper drives a rack and pinion!
I ordered an l298 and can start playing with it after Thanksgiving! I'm sure I will have lots of questions!

Thanks again, Castle

Hi Jeremie, Ok I got my L298d and have it wired exactly as you recommend right down to the wire colors. I have a separate 5vdc power supply for the 298 as you can see in the photo. I connected to the EZ-B, opened an HBridge PWM Movement window but when I click on the arrows nothing happens - the motor does not turn any. What am I missing?

Welcome back @castlephelps!

So the H-bridge Movement Panel won't be able to control a stepper motor as it doesn't send stepping signals to the stepper motor. To make it "step" you will need to write a script.

Since you have the H-bridge enable pins connected to the ez-b you'll have to add those. Maybe just make them high for the moment.

Set(D5, ON) #enable pin 100% PWM
Set(D6, ON) #enable pin 100% PWM

:Start
 Set(D1, OFF)
 Set(D2, ON)
 Set(D3, ON)
 Set(D4, OFF)
 Sleep(10)
 Set(D1, OFF)
 Set(D2, ON)
 Set(D3, OFF)
 Set(D4, ON)
 Sleep(10)
 Set(D1, ON)
 Set(D2, OFF)
 Set(D3, OFF)
 Set(D4, ON)
 Sleep(10)
 Set(D1, ON)
 Set(D2, OFF)
 Set(D3, ON)
 Set(D4, OFF)
 Sleep(10)
 Goto(Start) 

Obviously the pins I have here may not match what you have hooked up, change the digital pin in the code accordingly

Way cool! Now to find the tutorial on adding code...

Thank you!

Quote:

Way cool! Now to find the tutorial on adding code...

Alan