stepper motor control project

[diyora]

Hi friends,
I work on project.I control two stepper motor using PC parallel port.I done programming in turbo C.I enter stepper motor speed,keyboard keyevent to rotate motor in perticular direction & also enter angle to rotate stepper motor.
Now i want to change in my project. I want to use USB port instead of parallel port.
Is it possible?
yes then How ??.. For that my application remain same.Only change use USB port instead of parallel port.

Thank you..

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Your project would change MASSIVELY - both hardware and software would be completely different, you would need a processor to feed the stepper motor drivers - and you of course be using Windows and not DOS.

 

[diyora]

Hi Nigel,
Thanks for reply & suggestion.Above project i done in windows only.
Can you please give me the idea about which processor required?.How?.
As i think ,it would be only requiredment of microcontroller.I required data trasfer speed is 3.5 Mbps to 4 Mbps.

Thank you..

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I don't see as there's any need for any great speed?, you're sending data to a stepper motor, which is an exceptionally slow device.

The easiest way do USB is to use a USB/Serial converter, so your PC program accesses the interface as a simple serial port, and your processor connects via a serial link to the converter.

Alternatively you could use a processor that has it's own USB interface, but this is much more complicated.

Any PIC (or other micro-controller) would be able to easily handle such a simple task. Where before your PC program actually controlled the stepper, now the PIC controls the stepper - you simply send it instructions, and it carries them out (something like L45 - for 45 steps left?).

 

[diyora]

Hi Nigel,
Thank for reply.This project like security camera control.In future suppose i want to control also video signal so i required 4 Mbps data trasfer speed.
As you suggest USB to serial cable(dongle).I find out but it data trasfer speed is between 500 Kbps to 1 Mbps.So,it is not useful to me.
I think about high speed microcontroller but iit also fullfil my requiredment as i mention in my first thread.
Can you give me any useful suggestion?

Thank you..

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

You might check the PIC 18F series at MicroChip, many of those have USB interfaces, or perhaps the dsPIC's as well?.

But USB is very complicated!.

A good place to satrt might be the USB Bit Whacker project?
**broken link removed**

 

[blueroomelectronics]

You might want to explore the FT245R IC (USB to parallel)
**broken link removed**

 

[diyora]

Hi,
Thaks for reply.I see both ic FT245 & PIC 18Fxx.In both ic there is no mention the data transfer in communication(Run time)mode.There is only giving write & read speed.
Now about FT245 is USB to parallel converter so as i think this will reduced the data speed.
PIC 18Fxx which not clear for me.
Can yyou give me proper idea about this ??..
It also support the video signal.

Thank you..

 

[kchriste]

USB is quicker if you transfer larger blocks of data at a time. Transferring one byte at a time is slower and eats up CPU cycles on the host PC. It would be better to use a PIC and then write a program to buffer stepper commands from the PC so that you are writing high speed bursts of data over USB while the stepper turns relatively slowly.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Hi,
Thaks for reply.I see both ic FT245 & PIC 18Fxx.In both ic there is no mention the data transfer in communication(Run time)mode.There is only giving write & read speed.
Now about FT245 is USB to parallel converter so as i think this will reduced the data speed.
PIC 18Fxx which not clear for me.
Can yyou give me proper idea about this ??..
It also support the video signal.

Thank you..

The FT245 can take data far faster than a stepper could use it.
What do you mean by video signal?

Are you trying to build a pan and tilt video camera?

 

[diyora]

Hi blueroomelectronics,
Thanks for reply.You are thinking correct.I want to build pan & tilt video camera.So in future video signal there.
Is this ic(FT 245) support high data transfer speed with video signal ??..


Thank you..

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Hi blueroomelectronics,
Thanks for reply.You are thinking correct.I want to build pan & tilt video camera.So in future video signal there.
Is this ic(FT 245) support high data transfer speed with video signal ??..

I would suggest your first problem is converting the video signal to a USB data stream, and presumably using MPEG2 compression to make it a reasonable size?.

 

[ClydeCrashKop]

You might check this thread for the video input: https://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/cmos-camera-image-processing.28127/

Microsoft DirectX 8 and later SDKs have a sample USB camera input program that you can work with. They give you a pointer to live video bitmap pictures in memory that you can intercept for comparisons etc.
DirectX is for Microsoft C and C++ or visual Basic. Unless you have been there before, it will take lots of reading.

 

[diyora]

Hi all,
Thanks for reply. Can you first clear my doubt...?
Is it possible in high data transfer microcontroller to pass the video signal ?.
Because in future I have 4 video signal which is only pass through it.

Thank you...

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

No, you can't just 'pass a video signal through' a micro-controller, it's a high bandwidth analogue signal.

 

[diyora]

Hi,
So, What is the other option for that ?.
Because I want to control stepper motors & 4 video signal with Single USB port of my Computer.

Thank you for help me...

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Then get a USB hub.
**broken link removed**

 

[diyora]

Hi,
Thanks for reply.But for data transfer insted of microcontroller which option is useful for me.
I think on pc board,PC/104,etc.

Thank you..

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Hi,
Thanks for reply.But for data transfer insted of microcontroller which option is useful for me.
I think on pc board,PC/104,etc.

Thank you..

What are you trying to say?

PS PC/104 is old and expensive.

 

[diyora]

Hi,
Thanks for reply.I just start the collect information about PC/104 board.
Because no one suggeste option insted of microcontroller which option is useful for me.
I see board on link:
**broken link removed**
**broken link removed**
http://www.embeddedsys.com/subpages/products/singleboardcomputer.shtml