Driving Stepper Motors in Embedded Linux on the Beaglebone

This video examines how we can drive stepper motors using C++ within Embedded Linux using the open source hardware EasyDriver board. The video begins by describing stepper motors and the effects of micro-stepping. It then discusses the EasyDriver Board (V4.4) and all of the available inputs and outputs. The board uses the Allegro A3967 which allows for full, half-, quarter and one eight micro-stepping. The video then explains C++ code that uses the GPIOs on the Beagleboard to wrap the EasyDriver with a C++ class that is easy to use by creating an object of the class for each stepper motor that is connected.

The source code in this video is available through githhub:

Finally I show an example of my code running on the Mercury Motor (SM-42BYG011-25), which is a low cost stepper motor.