Re: Single axis stepper control setup
You are welcome. If you can program in FORTRAN, C will be easy to pick up but object oriented methods may be new.
You will probably need to remove some features to regain enough global memory to add your menus. The problem with the Arduino is that strings defined in the code are copied from the static flash code memory space into global memory variables so they become read/write. Then we run out of global memory and behaviour becomes erratic due to memory overwrites. Thats why some of the menu options are cryptic.
The Arduino supports the PROGMEM variable modifier to prevent this happening and leave the strings in the program memory where they are read only (perfect for menu text). The biggest contribution somebody could make to my code would be to modify the 3rd party LCD class so that it accepted PROGMEM variables for menu prompts so that text prompts are no longer the limiting factor.
I was hoping to add an SD card and some sort of macro programming language so that you could write your command sequence in a text file on a PC, copy it to an SD card and pop it into the Arduino to do what you want to do but the global memory became the limiting factor which prevented this.
And yes, the Arduino has a 16 MHz clock so in theory, can support a maximum step rate of 8 Mhz (on/off states) so it has more than enough headroom for any conceivable stepgen application and more than enough to drive a 10x microstepping Gecko drive which will be in the kHz range.
Rod Webster
www.vehiclemods.net.au