ccoon sntsr ut crt u

i ocnt i o n

STEPPER MOTOR CONTROL USING sAN

I THE
O

89C51 MICROCONTROLLER
Mandeep Singh Walia By combining a versatile 8-bit CPU Parts List
with Flash on a monolithic chip, Atmel

H
Semiconductors:
ere’s a stepper motor controller AT89C51 is a powerful, highly flexible and IC1 - 7805 5V regulator
based on 89C51 microcontroller to cost-effective solution to many embedded IC2 - AT89C51 microcontroller
control the rotation of a DC step- control applications. From traffic control T1, T3, T5, T7 - BC548 npn transistors
per motor in clockwise and anti-clockwise equipment to input devices, computer T2, T4, T6, T8 - SL100 npn transistors
directions. The controller is simple and networking products and stepper motor D1-D8 - 1N4001 rectifier diodes
easy-to-construct, and can be used in many controllers, 89C51 microcontrollers deliver LED1 - Red LED (5mm dia.)
applications including machine control and a high performance with a choice of con- Resistors (all ¼-watt, ±5% carbon):
robotics for controlling the axial rotation in figurations and options matched to the R1 - 100-ohm
XY plane. A similar circuit can be added to specific needs of each application. R2 - 10-kilo-ohm
control the rotation of the motor in either IC AT89C51 features: R3, R5, R7, R9 - 1-kilo-ohm
XZ or YZ plane. 1. 8-bit CPU with math registers A R4, R6, R8, R10 - 470-ohm
Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of the and B Capacitors:
stepper motor control system. The power 2. 16-bit program counter (PC) and C1 - 220µF, 25V electrolytic
supply section (in Fig. 2) consists of a step- data pointer (DPTR) C2 - 100µF, 16V electrolytic
down transformer (7.5V AC, 1A), bridge 3. 8-bit program status word (PSW) C3 - 10µF, 16V electrolytic
rectifier (comprising diodes D1 through 4. 8-bit stack pointer (SP) C4, C5 - 33pF ceramic disk
D4), filter capacitors (C1 and C2) and The control switches for the motor are C6 - 100µF, 16V electrolytic
regulator IC 7805. connected to Reset and Port P0.7 pins of the Miscellaneous:
We have used here an Atmel make microcontroller. X1 - 230VAC primary to 0-7.5V,
low-power, high-performance, 8-bit CMOS 1A secondary step-down
microcontroller AT89C51 with 4 kB of Flash transformer
Circuit description - 5V DC stepper motor
programmable and erasable read-only
memory (PEROM). It has a 128x8-bit inter- Fig. 2 shows the complete circuit of the
nal RAM, 32 programmable input/output stepper motor controller. When power stepper motor coils.
(I/O) lines and two 16-bit timer/counters. supply switch S1 is closed, LED1 glows When transistors conduct, 5V (Vcc) is
The on-chip Flash allows the program to indicate the presence of power in the applied to the coils and the currents flow-
memory to be reprogrammed in-system circuit. Capacitor C3 connected to pin 9 ing through them create magnetic fields
or by a conventional non-volatile memory (RST) provides the power-on reset to the and the motor starts rotating. The magnetic
programmer. microcontroller. field energy thus created is stored in the
The stepper motor coils.
is connected to port When transistors stop conducting,
pins P2.4 through power to the coils is cut off, the magnetic
P2.7 of the microcon- field collapses and a reverse voltage (called
troller (IC2) through inductive kickback or back emf) is gener-
t h e m o t o r - d r i ve r ated in the coils. The back emf can be
circuit consisting of more than 100 volts. The diodes connected
four Darlington pairs across the coils absorb the reverse voltage
comprising transis- spike. This voltage, if not absorbed by the
tors BC548 and SL100 diodes, may produce opposite torque and
(T1-T2, T3-T4, T5-T6 cause improper rotation of the motor and
Fig. 1: Block diagram of the stepper motor control system and T7-T8). Coils also damage the transistors. You can use
1 through 4 are the virtually any type of rectifier or switching
diodes of appropriate current and reverse
Table I voltage breakdown rating.
Power Consumption of Microcontrollers Clock and reset circuit. Two 33pF
IC Voh Ioh Voi Ioi Vil Iil Vih Iih Pt capacitors (C4 and C5) are connected to
pins 18 and 19 of the microcontroller,
CMOS 2.4V –60 µA 0.45V 1.7 mA 0.9V 10 µA 1.9V 10 µA 50 mW respectively, with an 11.059MHz piezo-
NMOS 2.4V –80 µA 0.45V 1.7 mA 0.8V –800 mA 2.0V 10 µA 800 mW electric crystal (XTAL1) across them. The

electronics for you October 2004

 construction

clock frequency of the microcontroller

depends on the frequency of the crystal
oscillator used. Typically, the maximum
and minimum frequencies are 1 MHz and
16 MHz, respectively, so we should use a
piezoelectric crystal with a frequency in
this range. The speed of the stepper motor
is proportional to the frequency of the in-
put pulses or it is inversely proportional to
the time delay between pulses, which can
be achieved through software by making
use of instruction execution time.
The time taken by any instruction to
get executed can be computed as follows:
C×12
Time=
F
where ‘C’ is the number of cycles an in-
struction takes to execute and ‘F’ is the
crystal frequency.
The crystal frequency in this circuit
is 11.059 MHz, so the time taken to
execute, say, ADD A, R1 (single-cycle
instruction), is about one microsecond
(µs). Use of a 6MHz crystal will bring
down the instruction execution speed to
to 2 µs.
When power is applied, the reset input
must first go high and then low. A resistor-
capacitor combination (R1-C3) is used to
achieve this until the capacitor begins to
charge. At a threshold of about 2.5V, the
reset input reaches a low level and the mi-
crocontroller begins to function normally.
Reset switch (S2) allows you to reset the
program without having to interrupt the
power.
One major feature of 89C51 microcon-
troller is the versatility built into the I/O
circuits that connect the microcontroller to
the outside world. Ports P0 through P3 of
the microcontroller are not capable of driv-
ing loads that require tens of milliamperes
(mA). Logic level current, voltage and
power requirement for different versions of
microcontrollers are given in Table I.
Driver circuit design. The microcon-
troller outputs a current of 1.7 mA. To
drive the coil of a stepper motor requir-
ing a torque of 7 kg-cm, 12V DC and 2
amp/phase, we have to use a driver circuit
that amplifies the current from 1.7 mA to
3 amp.
As mentioned earlier, we have used
BC548 and SL100 as the driver transis-
tors for driving a low-power rated stepper
motor such as the one used in earlier
14cm (5.5-inch) floppy drives. But for a
7 kg-cm stepper motor, a driver circuit us-
ing transistors SL100 and 2N3055 would
be needed to amplify the current to 2.72
amp. Typically, SL100 and 2N3055 each

October 2004 electronics for you

 construction

Table II
Clockwise Step Sequence of the Motor
A1 A2 B1 B2 A1 A2 B1 B2 Hex value

0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 =33h
0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 =66h
1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 =CCh
1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 =99h

Anti-clockwise Step Sequence of the Motor

A1 A2 B1 B2 A1 A2 B1 B2 Hex value

0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 =33h
1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 =99h
1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 =CCh
0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 =66h

= 2.72 A defines the rotation by 202 steps. The

Fig. 3: Flow-chart of the program Since the stepper motor has four coils, hex number ‘0CAH’ equals the decimal
we need to use four Darlington pairs. number ‘202.’ However, one can change
has a gain (hfe) of 40, but 2N3055 can the number of steps in the program as per
handle larger current since it belongs one’s requirement.
Programming
to the family of power transistors. So a The step sequence is defined by the
heat-sink is required to dissipate the heat The program is written in Assembly lan- line ‘MOV A, #033H.’ Table II shows the
generated. guage and compiled using ASM51 cross- step sequence for 100 steps to energise the
The output gain of the Darlington pair assembler. The listing file is given at the windings of the stepper motor in clockwise
of SL100 and 2N3055 transistors is: end of this article. 89C51 microcontroller and anti-clockwise directions. The rotor of
AVo = AV1 × AV2 is programmed using Atmel’s Flash pro- the stepper motor is in a position of mini-
= 40×40 grammer. mum reluctance and maximum flux. Thus
= 1600 One-step rotation of the stepper motor by energising the windings (represented
AVo = Io/Iin = 1600 used in this project equals 1.8o. When you by A1, A2, B1 and B2), the rotor takes
where Io is the output current and Iin is program the motor for 200 steps, the motor the position accordingly. In the program,
the input current of the Darlington pair. makes one complete revolution, i.e. 360o. the instructions ‘RR A’ and ‘RL A’ are
Io = 1600×1.7 mA In the program, the line ‘MOV R7, #0CAH’ used for clockwise and anti-clockwise,

Fig. 4: Actual-size, single-side pcb for stepper motor control Fig. 5: Component layout for the PCB
system using 89C51 microcontroller

electronics for you October 2004

 construction

respectively. smoothly. card is shown in Fig. 2.

S1 and S3 are toggle switches, while After you are done with the hardware
S2 is a tactile switch. Switch S3 interfaced part, assemble the program (stpb1.asm) us-
Construction and working
to pin 32 of the microcontroller determines ing ASM51 assembler. Load the hex file gener-
the direction of rotation. When the switch You can assemble the circuit on any gen- ated by ASM51 into a programmer and burn
is opened the motor rotates in clockwise eral-purpose PCB. An actual-size, single- it into the chip. Now put the programmed
direction, and when the switch is closed side PCB for the stepper motor controller is chip on the IC base on the PCB.
the motor rotates in anti-clockwise direc- shown in Fig. 4 and its component layout Switch on the power supply to the
tion. in Fig. 5. circuit using switch S1. If motor rotation
For anti-clockwise rotation of the Mount a 40-pin IC base for the micro- is not stable, press S2 momentarily. If the
motor, reset switch S2 is to be pressed controller on the PCB, so you can remove motor does not move at all, check the
momentarily after S3 is closed (see Fig. 3). the chip easily when required. Normally, connections.
In case you observe an abnormal motion six wires of different colours (two being Note. The source code and the relevant
of the motor either in clockwise or anti- red) are available for connection to the files for this article have been included in
clockwise direction, pressing reset switch stepper motor. The sequence for connect- this month’s EFY-CD.
S2 momentarily will make the motor run ing the stepper motor coils to the driver

STPB1.LST
1 $MOD51 13 0023 758D01 25 MOV TH1, #1D
0000 2 ORG 0000H 0010 7FCA 14 P12: MOV R7, #0CAH; 0026 D28E 26 SETB TR1
0000 E580 3 MOV A, P0 0012 7433 15 MOV A, #033H; 0028 308FFD 27 BACK: JNB TF1, BACK
0002 33 4 RLC A 0014 F5A0 16 P11: MOV P2, A; 28
0003 500B 5 JNC P12 0016 03 17 RR A; 002B C28E 29 CLR TR1
6 0017 111B 18 ACALL DELAY 002D C28F 30 CLR TF1
0005 7FCA 7 MOV R7, #0CAH; 0019 DFF9 19 DJNZ R7, P11 002F DBEF 31 DJNZ R3, Z
0007 7433 8 MOV A, #033H; 20 0031 22 32 RET
0009 F5A0 9 P13: MOV P2, A; 21 33 END
000B 23 10 RL A; 001B 758910 22 DELAY: MOV TMOD, #10H
000C 111B 11 ACALL DELAY 001E 7B05 23 MOV R3, #05 VERSION 1.2k ASSEMBLY COMPLETE, 0 ERRORS
000E DFF9 12 DJNZ R7, P13 0020 758B08 24 Z: MOV TL1, #8D FOUND q

electronics for you October 2004