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Part of the machine inside FreeCAD

This is the algorithm that plans the trajectory and syncs the movements of the stepper motors, in the new CNC machine that I’m designing (and building!)

The input is an int array { MA, MB, MC, MD } where each int means the number of steps (positive or negative).

The stepper movement logic is stored into a boolean[8] array { SA, DA, SB, DB…. } where SA means step for motor A and DA is the direction bit of the motor A (for a 2 wire stepper driver, like the a4988). This array is erased and re-computed every loop cycle with the next movement, so real motor stepping has to take place inside this loop.

The image below (created with FreeCAD) shows a representation of the algorithm output for a requested movement of ( 5, 15, 25, 40 ) steps. Continue reading Move 4 Stepper Motors Synchronously →