Arduino Stepper Motor Drive Coil Winder

Videos for this project:

Arduino stepper motor coil winder
Arduino Stepper Motor Tutorial
PNP Darlington Stepper Motor Driver

As an amateur radio builder winding RF coils is a tedious and often hit and miss process. Based on a combination of earlier and some new programming an Arduino micro-controller based board in combination with a 5-volt unipolar stepper motor solved the problem.

Most of the coils use a 2 inch diameter mailing tube held in place with nuts in a threaded rod. The end pieces were cut with keyhole bits on a drill press. The threaded rod was connected directly to the stepper motor shaft with vinyl tubbing. See video for construction details.

The four switches are connected to DP2-DP5 allows the user to program the number of turns by holding down SW1 while adding 1 by pressing SW2 or adding 10 by pressing SW3. SW4 is the run switch - the count is decremented by 1 every 360 degree (or 200 steps with a 1.8 degree stepper) until the count is zero. Pressing reset clears the count back to 0.

The control board can use any Arduino controller. The outputs to the stepper motor driver uses 4 opto-couplers in the image. The motor and Arduino in this case have separate power supplies.

Also note the control in the upper left-hand corner can act as a speed control.

Arduino based coil winder schematic.
Click for large image.

An alternative PNP Darlington Driver Board.

Connections I2C LCD Display to Arduino

To connect the I2C LCD display see Connect Arduino to I2C Liquid Crystal Display

Arduino code for this project: winder2.ino.

Arduino based coil winder.


/*

  http://www.bristolwatch.com/radio/arduino_coil_winder.htm
  Arduino Stepper Motor Coil Winder
  Lewis Loflin
  lewis@bvu.net

*/

#define Q1 9
#define Q2 10
#define Q3 11
#define Q4 12

#define SW1 2
#define SW2 3
#define SW3 4
#define SW4 5

#include <OneWire.h>
#include <Wire.h>
#include <LiquidCrystal_I2C.h>

// set the LCD address to 0x27, 2 lines, 16 char
LiquidCrystal_I2C lcd(0x27, 16, 2);


int i, j;

void setup()  {

  pinMode(SW1, INPUT);
  pinMode(SW2, INPUT);
  pinMode(SW3, INPUT);
  pinMode(SW4, INPUT);

  digitalWrite(SW1, INPUT_PULLUP);
  digitalWrite(SW2, INPUT_PULLUP);
  digitalWrite(SW3, INPUT_PULLUP);
  digitalWrite(SW4, INPUT_PULLUP);

  lcd.init(); // initialize the lcd
  lcd.backlight();

  pinMode(Q4, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(Q3, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(Q2, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(Q1, OUTPUT);
  all_coils_off();

  lcd.clear();
  lcd.home();
  lcd.print("Wait 2 sec.");

  delay(2000); // wait for 2 seconds
  lcd.setCursor(0, 1); // is Home
  lcd.print("Ready to go!");

}

void loop() {

  // set turns
  if (!digitalRead(SW1) == 1)   {
    delay(1000);
    j = 0;
    lcd.clear();
    lcd.home();
    lcd.print("Turns = 0  ");
    while (!digitalRead(SW1) == 1)   {
      delay(1000);
      if (!digitalRead(SW2) == 1) j = j + 1;
      if (!digitalRead(SW3) == 1) j = j + 10;
      lcd.setCursor(8, 0);
      lcd.print(j);
    } // end while
    lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
    lcd.print("Ready to wind.");
  } // end if

  if (!digitalRead(SW4))  {
    lcd.clear();
    lcd.home();
    lcd.print("Turns 0  ");
    for (i = 1; i <= j; i++)   {
      // 1.8 Deg. per step = 360 Deg.
      steps(200);
      lcd.setCursor(6, 0);
      lcd.print(i);
    } // end for
    all_coils_off();
    lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
    lcd.print("Finished ");
  } // end if

} // end loop


void all_coils_off(void)  {
  digitalWrite(Q4, 0);
  digitalWrite(Q3, 0);
  digitalWrite(Q2, 0);
  digitalWrite(Q1, 0);

}

void steps(int i) {
  while (1)   {
    digitalWrite(Q4, 1);
    digitalWrite(Q3, 0);
    digitalWrite(Q2, 0);
    digitalWrite(Q1, 1);
    delay(analogRead(0) / 4 + 5);
    i--;
    if (i < 1) break;

    digitalWrite(Q4, 0);
    digitalWrite(Q3, 1);
    digitalWrite(Q2, 0);
    digitalWrite(Q1, 1);
    delay(analogRead(0) / 4 + 5);
    i--;
    if (i < 1) break;

    digitalWrite(Q4, 0);
    digitalWrite(Q3, 1);
    digitalWrite(Q2, 1);
    digitalWrite(Q1, 0);
    delay(analogRead(0) / 4 + 5);
    i--;
    if (i < 1) break;

    digitalWrite(Q4, 1);
    digitalWrite(Q3, 0);
    digitalWrite(Q2, 1);
    digitalWrite(Q1, 0);
    delay(analogRead(0) / 4 + 5);
    i--;
    if (i < 1) break;
  }
}

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