Hey guys,
I'm designing/building/controlling a new style of delta robot for my masters' thesis. I am trying to do the controls for the robot using an arduino mega and pololu stepper drivers. After playing around with it a bit and reading about it the speed of the stepper motors seems to be limited greatly in part by the frequency of the controller. I had the idea to overcome this by using all of the different step types throughout any given motion. Microstep when starting a move and picking up speed, interleave and half step when almost at max speed, then full steps when at max speed. Once decelerating the same process could be used until you come to a stop with microstepping for good precision and fluidity.
I see a ton of problems with this approach and I am wondering if anyone does it this way. The biggest problem I would think (other than the code being complicated) is how the stepper would react when swapping between the stepping types. For example trying to swap from microstep to interleave stepping while in a strange shaft position not attainable through interleave stepping.
Do people just avoid this problem all together and stick in one step size throughout the life of their printer, and just adjust the stepping speed?
I ordered a smoothieboard out of frustration because I read it is the best performing controller (although a lot more expensive). I should be able to step as fast as I need to with the smoothieboard due to the sheer superiority of its hardware over the arduino mega, but I would like to know the solution to this for future reference. I would much rather spend 30 bucks for a ramps 1.4 kit than 140 bucks for a smoothieboard if I can do the same thing with both.
TLDR: Can I change step sizes during one movement of a stepper to maximize speed if processor frequency is the bottleneck, like a horse going through its different gaits(walk, trot, canter)? Or do I have to stick to one step size and adjust its speed to suit all of my needs?
I'm designing/building/controlling a new style of delta robot for my masters' thesis. I am trying to do the controls for the robot using an arduino mega and pololu stepper drivers. After playing around with it a bit and reading about it the speed of the stepper motors seems to be limited greatly in part by the frequency of the controller. I had the idea to overcome this by using all of the different step types throughout any given motion. Microstep when starting a move and picking up speed, interleave and half step when almost at max speed, then full steps when at max speed. Once decelerating the same process could be used until you come to a stop with microstepping for good precision and fluidity.
I see a ton of problems with this approach and I am wondering if anyone does it this way. The biggest problem I would think (other than the code being complicated) is how the stepper would react when swapping between the stepping types. For example trying to swap from microstep to interleave stepping while in a strange shaft position not attainable through interleave stepping.
Do people just avoid this problem all together and stick in one step size throughout the life of their printer, and just adjust the stepping speed?
I ordered a smoothieboard out of frustration because I read it is the best performing controller (although a lot more expensive). I should be able to step as fast as I need to with the smoothieboard due to the sheer superiority of its hardware over the arduino mega, but I would like to know the solution to this for future reference. I would much rather spend 30 bucks for a ramps 1.4 kit than 140 bucks for a smoothieboard if I can do the same thing with both.
TLDR: Can I change step sizes during one movement of a stepper to maximize speed if processor frequency is the bottleneck, like a horse going through its different gaits(walk, trot, canter)? Or do I have to stick to one step size and adjust its speed to suit all of my needs?