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Driving 5 or 10 Stepper Motors in parallel

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: DRV8834

Hello Experts,

I want to drive around 10 stepper motors (actually a stepper motor like coils, which use the fundamentals of stepping motors) using a single micro controller.

Will it be a better choice to pick up a High Current Rated Driver and use a single driver to run all modules in parallel?

Or should I use smaller driver such as DRV8834 each dedicated to one module and controlled by a single micro controller?

Also, If I do the later way, as per our product design, I need to keep minimum wires running to each driver. I understand I will need a dedicated Step input for all, but is there any way of multiplexing all other control signals such as Dir, Enable, Config, M0, M1 etc. All modules may run at different speed and configuration simultaneously. Can there be something like Chip Select in run time?

  • Hi Rahul

    You should need 10 stepper drivers like DRV8834 for each motor. Even two steppers are not recommended to be driven in parallel. What's more, you need seperated speed and configuration.

    For your question about configing those device using minimum wires, you can try latched serial to parallel outputs parts such as 74HC595 which has 8 channel outputs and can be extended with daisy chain connection.

    Thanks

    Wilson Zuo

    Motor Application Team