Stepper Motor HAT for Raspberry Pi

Got this as a DIY telescope focusser project to add to my raspberry pi 4, used to control my telescope via KStars/EKOS. I'd read previous reviews, so was prepared to put in some effort to set up. I haven't yet managed to rotate my stepper motor via the test programs, I think because a more recent version of bcm2835 than v1.68 is needed. The price is reasonable, delivery was very quick, but documentation could be better. Others seem to question the microstepping functionality, but as I'm using a gearbox, I'll likely be using full step mode anyway. Overall, I'd recommend this product, but it may be a challenge for novices.

Once you get over the poor documentation this board does what it says on the tin. It took me a while to realise that the test.py file on the wave share wiki sit was incorrect, and required the griot pins changing. This board can also be run using the RpiMotorLib which is a little simpler to understand.

This is the Waveshare stepper motor hat. It looks well made, is clearly marked and easy to wire into a project. There are some problems, the documentation linked as a User Manual on the website is in bad English so needs re-writing. In that documentation is mention of an example Python script but that is poor. It would be better to have an easy to find and better documented example of a script on the PiHut website. The current control to the motor is via a potentiometer on the board but little or no detail is provided about how to adjust that, no reference voltage value or points are given as found on other stepper drivers. This is important as some applications require a lower current to make them run smoothly, not every application requires high torque, e.g. photographic rails require smoothness. Having said that, it is good product and is well priced.

The waveshare stepper motor shield was an easy install and the option to run it and the Pi on 12v was a great bonus. The multiple connections for the motors make testing and running simple too.

Very good. Lots of options to add different types of motors.

Does exactly what it says on the tin. I was able to control two stepper motors flawlessly with this device. Installing all the supporting software could have been a bit more straightforward as I had to duck & dive a bit to find & load all the right stuff for it but once that was done it was a star.

The usual prompt delivery from PiHut. Bought this board to drive the focus knob on a remoted astro-telescope. The board works very well and has the advantage of a very useful wide input range switching regulator that can also drive the Pi. The software examples are very basic but provide a good starting point if you know what you're doing. Given I need to run my project on a battery I've found a set back. Whether by feature or faux-pas the current motor design energies the motors the moment the external power is applied and the motors heat up very quickly at the expenses of the battery and before the PI has got a grip. TIP: ensure the motor current limit pots are set minimum before you first start. This motor-ON state persists until the Pi is fully booted AND the controlling program starts, configures the GPIO and acquires the motor drive. SUGGEST the first thing to do is call motor_STOP to de-energise the motors before attempting anything else. Turns out the motor drive chip default is to set the drive ON by internal pull-down resistors. Doh! On shutdown the GPIO pins immediately float bringing the motor(s) back on and the motor drive returns meaning the external power has to be removed soonest to save the batteries. Similarly, if the useful on-board 5v switch is set to off only the Pi looses power bringing the motor(s) on (again). This switch is very useful if the Pi is powered independently. Have added two 3.3K resistors from the motor driver chip's enable GPIO pins and up the Pi's 3.3v. This solves my problem as long as the Pi is powered. A better solution would be to connect to the driver's on-chip 3.3v output pin but the small surface mount layout makes this very difficult. My resistors are soldered across the board's 40pin interface connector but a better way would be on a retro fitted piggy back connector. The board design also allows software drive to the micro-stepping selection but at the cost of loosing eight GPIO lines. However, removing some resistors could easily resolve this one. The current board design would benefit from a revision to allow either motors-ON from applied power OR when the user's program is running and has a grip of things. Yep! Would buy this board again.