CNC Shield V3 for Arduino UNO - Stepper Motor Controller

Using an Arduino to make a CNC miller !

A4988 Driver CNC Shield Expansion Board for Arduino is an Arduino shield which controls four stepper motors by using four A4988 stepper motor driver boards. The board’s pinout is compatible with open source CNC control firmware Grbl. While the pinout makes it possible for the board to be used as an Arduino shield, the board can also be controlled by external signals using the parallel male headers to drive the stepper motors. By that way the shield actually becomes a general purpose control board and can be interfaced with any microcontroller system.

Another good feature of A4988 Driver CNC Shield Expansion Board for Arduino is one of the motors can clone the movement of one of the other two motors. Since there are lots of CNC or 3D printer systems that have double motors for single axis, this feature makes the board a pretty good choice to be used with these systems.

Note: A4988 motor driver boards are NOT included in the package.

Features

• CNC Shield compatible with Arduino Uno
• Control four stepper motors with A4988 stepper drivers (driver board not included)
• One motor can clone one of the other motors
• GRBL compatible pinout
• Can be interfaced with other microcontroller systems

Arduino sketch

// The following is a simple stepper motor control procedures
# define EN 8 // stepper motor enable , active low
# define X_DIR 5 // X -axis stepper motor direction control
# define Y_DIR 6 // y -axis stepper motor direction control
# define Z_DIR 7 // z axis stepper motor direction control
# define X_STP 2 // x -axis stepper control
# define Y_STP 3 // y -axis stepper control
# define Z_STP 4 // z -axis stepper control

/ *
/ / Function : step . function: to control the direction of the stepper motor , the number of steps .
/ / Parameters : dir direction control , dirPin corresponding stepper motor DIR pin , stepperPin corresponding stepper motor " step " pin , Step number of step of no return value.
* /

void step (boolean dir, byte dirPin, byte stepperPin, int steps)
{
    digitalWrite (dirPin, dir);
    delay (50);
    for (int i = 0; i <steps; i + +) 
    {
        digitalWrite (stepperPin, HIGH);
        delayMicroseconds (800);
        digitalWrite (stepperPin, LOW);
        delayMicroseconds (800);
    }
}

void setup () {   // The stepper motor used in the IO pin is set to output
    pinMode (X_DIR, OUTPUT); pinMode (X_STP, OUTPUT);
    pinMode (Y_DIR, OUTPUT); pinMode (Y_STP, OUTPUT);
    pinMode (Z_DIR, OUTPUT); pinMode (Z_STP, OUTPUT);
    pinMode (EN, OUTPUT);
    digitalWrite (EN, LOW);
}

void loop () {
    step (false, X_DIR, X_STP, 200); // X axis motor reverse 1 ring, the 200 step is a circle.
    step (false, Y_DIR, Y_STP, 200); // y axis motor reverse 1 ring, the 200 step is a circle.
    step (false, Z_DIR, Z_STP, 200); // z axis motor reverse 1 ring, the 200 step is a circle.
    delay (1000);
    step (true, X_DIR, X_STP, 200); // X axis motor forward 1 laps, the 200 step is a circle.
    step (true, Y_DIR, Y_STP, 200); // y axis motor forward 1 laps, the 200 step is a circle.
    step (true, Z_DIR, Z_STP, 200); // z axis motor forward 1 laps, the 200 step is a circle.
    delay (1000);
} 

Note: This module have no reverse-current circuitry protection, must be carefully to connect to stepper motor.

Stepper motor wiring as follows
2A, 2B in one group (Red, Green), 1A, 1B in one group (Blue, Yellow);
If you want to change the rotation direction, you will need to change it group by group (1A+1B & 2A+2B exchanged)

Notes:

• Please note that this item does not come with an Arduino (you'll need one to use with the shield).
• The shield now comes with all the components soldered on and have headers installed.