Stepper Motors and ATtiny: 28BYJ-48, ULN2003, and ATtiny85

Today I will be taking some time to briefly revisit stepper motors. Recently I have been trying to map out the boundaries of my ATtiny capabilities, and it occurred to me that I have never gotten my stepper motor working with one. Eager to fix that I broke out my ATtiny85 and my 28BYJ-48 Stepper motor and went to town.

First things first, I already did a post on the 28BYJ-48 with a ULN2003 motor controller for the Arduino (HERE) and won't repeat the information listed there. If you are having trouble getting the motor to work on an ATtiny85/45, I recommend you go back and check out my other post. It has lots of useful links and tips.

If you need instructions on getting the ATtiny running with the Arduino IDE, check out my ATtiny label. For this post I will be using the Arduino Tiny core from Google Code. It runs on Arduino 1.5. For the programmer I will be using a USBtinyISP with my ATtiny85/45 programming adapter.

This really turned out to be pretty straight forward. Using the same Small_Stepper.ino example from my last post, I changed the pins to the correct values and everything worked (get my ATtiny sketch HERE). The motor turned nicely. One note about wiring, you can't actually wire this stepper the way that you define it. There are comments about this in my sketch, but for those that don't download the sketch, reverse the 2 middle wires. If you don't reverse the 2 middle wires the motor will not turn in reverse. If you want a longer explanation as to why and a complicated fix, go to THIS forum post. I just reversed the wires.

Example: Stepper small_stepper(STEPS, 0, 2, 1, 3);    implies that you connect ATtiny pins 0, 2, 1, and 3 to pins IN1, IN2, IN3, and IN4 respectively. For this motor you should  connect ATtiny pins 0, 1, 2, and 3 to pins IN1, IN2, IN3, and IN4 respectively.

Since that was so easy, I decided to do something else as well. I made a stepper version of the Knob example. Some readers may know that such an example already exists in the Arduino IDE, but I wasn't happy with the way it worked with my motor. My sketch works a little differently. As you can see from the video below, as I turn the knob, the speed of the stepper changes. If you want the sketch, you can get it HERE.

There you have it. Controlling a stepper motor with an ATtiny85 is not only possible, it is easy. If you run into problems or use this post to great success, let me know. I hope this post turns out to be somewhat useful.

-Matthew

I2C HC-SR04 Sonar Module: ATtiny85 I2C

In this post I will show you how to cheaply  make an I2C sonar sensor for your Arduino. This will be accomplished by making an I2C controller for an HC-SR04 sensor out of an ATtiny85 (or ATtiny45). Both the sensor and the microcontroller can be found online for a few dollars. Together these two parts can save you money while increasing functionality over premade solutions.

If you have not already done so, check out my previous post on a serial sonar sensor. It also discusses running the NewPing library on an ATtiny (my modified TinyNewPing library). I have also done a post on I2C communication. In fact, I even transmitted data from my PING sensor! Check it out HERE.

1) First off, we need an I2C library for your ATtiny. For this you have a few options, but I will only be using one of them. The regular Wire library will not work on the ATtiny side. However, thanks to some great work  by Arduino users BroHogan and Rambo we do have the TinyWire library. The original library by BroHogan can be downloaded HERE. I have used the Master library from it, but for the Slave library I will be using a fork by Rambo. He added a bit more functionality including an onRequest and an onReceive function (which I use in my examples). Find his library HERE (download zip link is in the bottom right corner).

You will also need the ATtiny core for whatever Arduino IDE you are using. In the past I have used the core from High-Low Tech. Now however I prefer the Google Code core. A recent update allows ATtiny support with Arduino 1.5. Anyway, if you need more details on getting an ATtiny running see my previous posts linked above or click on the ATtiny label.

You need to burn your ATtiny85/45 to 8MHz. This is important for stable I2C communication (consider making my ATtiny programming adapter!). You also need my TinyNewPing library installed.

2) Wiring is simple. Connect the 5V from the Arduino to the VCC of the ATTiny and the PING sensor. Connect all the grounds together. Then connect the Trigger and Echo pins of the PING sensor together and to pin 3 (PB3) of the ATtiny85. Next connect the I2C wires. Connect the ATtiny SCL (PB2) to the Arduino SCL (Arduino Uno: A5 , Arduino Mega2560: 21 , Arduino Due: 21). Connect the ATtiny SDA (PB0) to the Arduino SDA (Arduino Uno: A4, Arduino Mega2560: 20 , Arduino Due: 20). Finally, and very importantly, connect 4.7k (on 5V) ohm pull-UP resistors to the SCL and SDA lines.

3) Now you have the libraries installed. Everything is wired up. The only thing left to do is test it. THIS code goes on the ATtiny. It reads one HC-SR04 sensor and acts as the I2C slave. THIS code goes on your other Arduino. I used a Mega, but you can use whatever you have. It requests the data from the slave and then outputs it to the serial monitor.

That is about it. Assuming everything works, you are ready to go. Using this method, you should be able to get sensor data from many sensors at once using only 2 pins on your Arduino. One thing to remember, since they are not all being controlled by the same Arduino, the sensors are not synchronized. As such, they could interfere with each other if they are pointed in the same direction.

Also, I attempted to control multiple sensors with one ATtiny. This worked, sort of. It was buggy and crashed after 15 seconds or so, I suspect do to a I2C buffer issue. Regardless, it made the code more complicated on both sides and the system wasn't as reliable. Besides (I said to myself), ATtinys can be found fairly cheap (especially surface mount ones). My time is worth something. While I got tired of messing with it, if someone else gets it working let me know. I'd be interested to see your code.

There you have it. A cheap I2C ultrasonic ranger for an Arduino (or I2C master device of your choice). If you use this approach in any of your projects I would love to hear about it in the comments. Of course, if you have problems I will do my best to help you with them.

-Matthew

Homemade Adjustable Breadboard Power Supply

I just finished making a breadboard power supply and decided to share it with the world. I decided to make one when trying to reset the fuses on an ATtiny as discussed HERE. I needed a 12V supply, and the 12V wall wart I was planning on using read 18V.

Full disclosure, I got the idea for this project from THIS Instructable. Furthermore, breadboard power supplies can be purchased for less than $10 on Ebay. Adafruit also sells kits. If you just want a 5V or 3.3V power supply those are even cheaper. Get a $2 MB-102 Power Supply off Ebay. However, if you just enjoy building things or want soldering practice continue reading.

This schematic is really the only reference I used. I found the LM317 in an old computer. The same for the ceramic capacitor (.1uF is one marked 104). I had the other parts. I used a cheap 10k pot I had sitting around and a 220 ohm resistor instead of the ones shown. Be sure you put the polarized capacitor in correctly and mind how you connect the potentiometer, and it's a piece of cake. I didn't use a heat sink but feel free to put one on if you anticipate pulling a lot of current.

Below are some pictures to give you some ideas.

As you can see, the power supply plugs right into the rails of my MB-102 breadboard. Double connections keep it plugged in nicely and the screw terminal allows me to plug in any DC wall wart I want or attach a barrel jack if I need to. Turning the 10k pot adjusts the output from 0V to the voltage of the input.

My mini voltmeter seemed to fit nicely, so I taped it onto a blank space.

That's about it. Now go make your own supply to power all the breadboards in your life.

-Matthew