WiFi Stepper Motor Controller with Web-based Interface

The WiFi Stepper is a powerful and versatile wifi-connected stepper motor controller that can support a single stepper motor of up to 85 volts at 10 amperes. Today I’ll show you how to use this device along with its web-based user interface to perform all sorts of tricks with a NEMA 17 stepper motor.

Article for this video at https://dbot.ws/wifistep
More Articles and tutorials at https://dronebotborkshop.com

WiFi Stepper on Crowd Supply – https://www.crowdsupply.com/good-robotics/wi-fi-stepper

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Today I’m testing a very interesting piece of technology which was sent to me by its creator, Andrew Klofas of Good Robotics. It’s a wifi-controlled stepper motor controller with some very impressive capabilities and specifications.

Andrew is crowdfunding this project on Crowd Supply – https://www.crowdsupply.com/good-robotics/wi-fi-stepper.

The device, as its name would imply, will allow you to control a stepper motor over wifi. It will support both very small and very large stepper motors, anything up to 85 volts at 10 amps!

I tested it with a 12-volt NEMA 17 type stepper motor and it performed very well. The web-based interface allowed mt to control=virtuially every aspect of the stepper, and it even allowed me to operate it in “Servo Mode”, giving my stepper motor “servo-like” behavior.

The board makes use of four main components:

ESP8266 WiFi controller.
powerSTEP01 stepper motor driver.
Microchip ATECC508A crypto-authentication module.
Maxim MAX15062 high-efficiency voltage regulator.

Together these work with a web-based interface that will allow you to drive a stepper motor in three different modes using either voltage or current control. It supports an external switch that can stop or reverse the motor, as well as several connections to both the ESP8266 and powerSTEP01 controller.

You can also make use of Bash or Python scripts to control the motor without the web-based interface, making it possible to incorporate the WiFi Stepper into your programs or automation sequences. I’ll show you an example using a Bash script on a Raspberry Pi.

Here is the Table of Contents for today’s video:

WiFi Stepper Motor Controller – 3:02
Getting Started – 7:13
Web-Based User Interface – 11:07
Speed Control Mode – 13:58
Voltage vs Current Control – 18:04
Servo Control Mode – 20:44
External Step Clock Mode – 22:44
Bash Scripts – 27:29

As always I have an article that goes along with the video, you can find it at – https://dbot.ws/wifistep.

If you are interested in getting a WiFi Stepper of your own check out the crowdfunding campaign at https://www.crowdsupply.com/good-robotics/wi-fi-stepper

I’d like to thank Andrew Klofas at Good Robotics for sending me this evaluation board of his product, the WiFi Stepper. I’m looking forward to putting it to use in one of my projects very soon.

Speaking of my projects, a lot of new things are happening here in the workshop this spring. To keep up to date please subscribe to the newsletter, it’s my way of staying in touch and also getting your feedback on the tigs I do here. You can sign up at https://dbot.ws/dbnews

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