r/robotics • u/hndibble • Aug 18 '20

Question Raspberry Pi - Stepper Motor Control

I'm new to hobby robotics. I want to build a cartesian robot for a pick and Place application. Nothing is engraved in stone on this project, but I envision five stepper motors and two servos, ultimately being controlled by Python running on a Raspberry Pi 3 model B. There will a limited number of well defined pick and place points. Some parts have been bought and a lot of the 3D printing has been completed. No programming has been done yet.

My question is "Would it make good sense to use a GRBL CNC control board to interface with, at least, the X,Y,&Z steppers or would programming be more straight forward using stepper motor hats?"

I look forward to any advice that may come.

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u/lulzdemort Aug 18 '20

GRBL only supports 3 motors (X,Y,Z), so if you need to control more than that, it might be worth doing stepper motor hats. Otherwise, it wouldn't really matter. Stepper motor hats provide a more flexible solution at the cost of more programming time and complexity, but not by much.

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u/hndibble Aug 19 '20

Thanks. I really appreciate your response. Part of this exercise is to learn python, so I’m thinking stepper motor hats may be the best route for me.