I like your branding ‘dead bug prototypes’ . But instead of the roach for an image you could use an upside down ic, which is what they call it when you mount an ic upside down on a board. But I think you chose that name because you knew that already. Just thinking some people might be creeped out by the cockroach image. I’m wondering which ic you are using for the steppers as well and have you found any limits to speed or other issues. I remember an LMR member here going to great lengths to build stepper drivers, but your setup looks so simple.
Hi Merser and thank you for your comments. Yes I know about the upside down IC and the name reflects that, and stomping out bugs in my design. I don’t see myself getting rich or drawing in a crowd by this brand. But I felt like adding some sort of brand to my work. (Probably some sort of ego thing….)
Anyway. The IC’s I’m using is a M74HC595B1R shift register and two SN75441ONE H-bridge drivers. Nothing fancy but it works very well.
Thank you Chris. You might also notice that I don’t use the spring as a belt tensioner on this version. The spring did not work that well with these fast steppers. So I used cable ties and that worked much better.
I am a scientist in need of an addressable XY-table for microtiter plates when - voilá - I stumbled across your project. This is great stuff! Being a chemist I don’t know ■■■■ about electronics but I did buy an Arduino Uno before to play around with. I am always one for learning new things. I need the table so that I can attach an ultrasonic level sensor to it to see where in my microtiter plate too much fluid has evaporated and needs to be replaced. Much to my surprise, there is no commercially available device that does this.
Geir, do you still have a board of the 2nd prototype you built and if so, would you be willing to part with it? I could buy these Phidget motors, but I already have two Canon stepper motors lying around (labelled CN38-21702, apparently with controller unit). Could I be using these as well? As I said, I am shamefully ignorant about electronics, so please be patient with me.
I am a chemist and I decided to construct such XY table in order to use it in auto-sampling for kinetic measurements.It was fortunate to find your creation. I am greatly impressed by it! I’ve read your instruction thoroughly (here and at Thingiverse) but I haven’t found .stl files for new NEMA 14 motors which you are using in 2.0 version. Would you be so kind to share these files?
Sincerely yours, Ilia Kochetygov.
Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, Novosibirsk, Russia.
Hi Geir,
We are trying to replicate your XY table to use for the same purposes (dispense over a 96-well plate). We have a few questions regarding some of the details of your design:
What kind of ICs did you use in your stepper driver board?
For the second version of the table, did you custom make your circuit board?
We noticed you have sensors in your design, which presumably are used to reset the table to a starting position. Do you think these are necessary, or could we track the position of the table by the number of steps of the motors?
Thank you for your help!
