Description
Project Blackjack uses two stepper motors. The first of these is a NEMA 17, a bipolar stepper motor, which we use to rotate the base of the card dealer. This motor had a current rating of 0.6A and a holding torque of 83 oz-in. The second is a Pololu bipolar stepper motor that drives the card advancer. That motor had a current rating of 1.2A and a holding torque of 44 oz-in. The Pololu stepper motor could also be unipolar so it had 6 wires (3 for each coil) so to use it as a bipolar stepper we had to omit 2 wires.
We use an Adafruit Motor Shield connected to an Arduino Uno to power and communicate with our two stepper motors. The Adafruit Motor Shield is designed to provide up to 1.2 A per motor. Our two motors pulled a maximum of 0.6 A and 1.2 A, so they both worked well with our motor shield. Both of our motors are rated at 12V, which works perfectly with our motor shield.
Things to keep in mind
- check the current rating on your motors to ensure that it's compatible with your motor controller