New stepper motor controller
I had a problem recently when I wanted to slow my main rose engine lathe down below 1 RPM to use with my laser engraver head rather than my drilling frame. I did some research and found that the SMC01 / 02 offered far more versatile facilities than my existing Youmile stepper controller even though they are a bit more expensive. The SMC01 still requires a separate stepper motor driver and the SMC02 does not need the driver but reading the reviews it is only really suitable for low current Nema 17 motors as the heat sink is quite small and gets very hot. Bearing in mind that I have a 4 amp Nema 23 stepper motor driving my rose engine I decided to use the SMC01.
I had to rewire the existing stepper motor driver as the wiring was different for the SMC01 as it has common negative connections and the Youmile has common positive connections. With the SMC01 and my existing stepper motor driver set to 6400 micro steps I can get a reliable 0.3 RPM now. If I need to go slower than this I will replace the stepper motor driver with one that has a higher number of micro steps.
I have created a 3D case and faceplate suitable for the SMC controller and the models are on Thingiverse and MakerWorld and are available for free download from the links. There are a lot of videos on the use of the SMC series of controllers on Youtube. The SMC01 is currently about £6.50 on Aliexpress and the SMC02 is about £11 on Aliexpress and the Youmile is around £8 on Amazon UK. The SMC’s are also available on Amazon at a higher cost than from Aliexpress.
The SMC series of controllers can be programmed to perform other functions as detailed in the pdf below, the SMC01 is programmed in the same way as the SMC02. You can download the pdf if you wish.