Looking for programmable stepper driver

Hi everyone.
I'm looking for a controller for NEMA17 stepper motor that I could program itself without the need for an external micro controller.
Goal is dead simple : it would take two input signal, one would make the motor do a half-turn clockwise, the other would make it do a half-turn anticlockwise.
I'm seen a couple of 'programmable controller' on Ebay (did I mention I'm cheap?) but I'm not sure to which extend those are programmable.
I could do that with an arduino easily but I'm looking forward to save time and part count for my build.
Thanks in advance.

I have a couple of the Dahnaher (Kollmorgen) Smoothstepper drives. You can find them occasionally on ebay. All of the name brand stepper manufacturers (Vexta, Oriental, Pacific Scientific) make them usually called Indexers, heres one from Compumoter (better snag it or I may):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/25511625495...pid=1554697557

To buy one new your talking about thousands of dollars, otherwise I dont know of any cheap Chinese type indexer drives, but there may be some. It sounds like a Uno or Rasberry would be the easiest cheap way off doing it, just have them send a pulse train to your stepper driver and program it to handle your simple I/O.

This is indeed very serious, professional and expensive stuff you're linking there.
My application is the complete opposite lol, cheap hobby stuff.
You're probably right, a microcontrolleur and a driver module can't probably be beaten in the simple/cheap category.
Thanks for the reply :)

I have a $35 Chinese one off Aliexpress. Programmable. Runs a Nema 23 with a driver and use it to peck and climb cut a large spindle molder. Works fine. Let me known if you want the link.

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I don’t think electronics that has the motor driver and controller and is programmable is going to be cheap. They do exist but are used with servo motors applications.
I’d say buy a cheap stepper driver and then program the Arduino to do what you need. Or use an Arduino stepper shield for nema 17. Advantage is that you can add what ever switches, rotary dials or displays you need.


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Hey just letting you know I tried an Arduino hooked up to a driver and Nema 23. For some reason I could only get very low rpm. Really low, no matter what I did. The controller I picked up takes a wee while to program was so cheap I bought a spare. You need to input each line of code (easy enough). But it's still running today. And well with 50 or so lines of code back and forth with my little Nema. Food for thought

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I don’t like Arduino Uno for driving stepper motors. Look at Teensy 3.2. There are stepper driver libraries for this micro that do an excellent job at any speed.
I’m sure others will disagree or chime in with their favorites.


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I wonder why. Not being electronics guru I just thought the Arduino wasn't powerful enough, or just not built to run a Nema and Driver. Dunno. But agree with the last post.

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Check this out:

https://www.pjrc.com/teensystep-fast...ntrol-library/


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