SparkFun Forums

[mcluka]

Dear all,

I'm trying to measure vibrations of the motor's shaft that is oscillating due to an eccentric load. For that, I am using the MPU 6050 6 axis accelerometer. The motor is a NEMA 17 stepper, connected to Arduino UNO.
I first uploaded my code for the stepper, where I have 2 buttons to control the rotation direction (if you press the left, it goes clockwise and if you press the right button it goes counter clockwise). This code works fine.
Later I uploaded the code only for the accelerometer and it worked fine, however when I'm trying to combine both so that the vibrations could be measured while the motor is running, apparently I'm losing steps of the motor. Here is the code:

Code: Select all

#include<Wire.h>
const int MPU_addr = 0x68; // I2C address of the MPU-6050
int16_t AcX, AcY, AcZ, Tmp, GyX, GyY, GyZ;

#define RPMS                300.0
#define STEP_PIN                9
#define DIRECTION_PIN           8
#define GO_PIN_L                3
#define GO_PIN_R                4

#define STEPS_PER_REV         200
#define MICROSTEPS_PER_STEP     8
#define MICROSECONDS_PER_MICROSTEP   (1000000/(STEPS_PER_REV * MICROSTEPS_PER_STEP)/(RPMS / 60))

uint32_t LastStepTime = 0;
uint32_t CurrentTime = 0;

int Distance = 0;

void setup() {
  Wire.begin();
  Wire.beginTransmission(MPU_addr);
  Wire.write(0x6B);  // PWR_MGMT_1 register
  Wire.write(0);     // set to zero (wakes up the MPU-6050)
  Wire.endTransmission(true);
  Serial.begin(9600);

  pinMode(STEP_PIN, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(DIRECTION_PIN, OUTPUT);
  digitalWrite(STEP_PIN, LOW);
  digitalWrite(DIRECTION_PIN, LOW);
  pinMode(GO_PIN_L, INPUT);
  pinMode(GO_PIN_R, INPUT);
}

void loop() {
  Distance = Distance + 1;   // record this step
  if (digitalRead(GO_PIN_L) == LOW)
  {
    CurrentTime = micros();
    digitalWrite(8, LOW);
    if ((CurrentTime - LastStepTime) > MICROSECONDS_PER_MICROSTEP)
    {
      LastStepTime = CurrentTime;
      digitalWrite(STEP_PIN, HIGH);
      delayMicroseconds((MICROSECONDS_PER_MICROSTEP * 0.9) / 2);
      digitalWrite(STEP_PIN, LOW);
      delayMicroseconds((MICROSECONDS_PER_MICROSTEP * 0.9) / 2);
    }
  }
  if (digitalRead(GO_PIN_R) == LOW)
  {
    CurrentTime = micros();
    digitalWrite(8, HIGH);
    if ((CurrentTime - LastStepTime) > MICROSECONDS_PER_MICROSTEP)
    {
      LastStepTime = CurrentTime;
      digitalWrite(STEP_PIN, HIGH);
      delayMicroseconds((MICROSECONDS_PER_MICROSTEP * 0.9) / 2);
      digitalWrite(STEP_PIN, LOW);
      delayMicroseconds((MICROSECONDS_PER_MICROSTEP * 0.9) / 2);
    }
  }
//  Wire.beginTransmission(MPU_addr);
//  Wire.write(0x3B);  // starting with register 0x3B (ACCEL_XOUT_H)
//  Wire.endTransmission(false);
//  Wire.requestFrom(MPU_addr, 14, true); // request a total of 14 registers
//  float AcX = Wire.read() << 8 | Wire.read(); // 0x3B (ACCEL_XOUT_H) & 0x3C (ACCEL_XOUT_L)
//  float AcY = Wire.read() << 8 | Wire.read(); // 0x3D (ACCEL_YOUT_H) & 0x3E (ACCEL_YOUT_L)
//  float AcZ = Wire.read() << 8 | Wire.read(); // 0x3F (ACCEL_ZOUT_H) & 0x40 (ACCEL_ZOUT_L)
//  Tmp = Wire.read() << 8 | Wire.read(); // 0x41 (TEMP_OUT_H) & 0x42 (TEMP_OUT_L)
//  // GyX=Wire.read()<<8|Wire.read();  // 0x43 (GYRO_XOUT_H) & 0x44 (GYRO_XOUT_L)
//  // GyY=Wire.read()<<8|Wire.read();  // 0x45 (GYRO_YOUT_H) & 0x46 (GYRO_YOUT_L)
//  // GyZ=Wire.read()<<8|Wire.read();  // 0x47 (GYRO_ZOUT_H) & 0x48 (GYRO_ZOUT_L)
//  Serial.print("AcX = "); Serial.println(AcX / 16384);
//  Serial.print(" AcY = "); Serial.println(AcY / 16384);
//  Serial.print(" AcZ = "); Serial.println(AcZ / 16384);
//  Serial.print(" Tmp = "); Serial.print(Tmp / 340.00 + 36.53);
//  Serial.println("");
//  // Serial.print(" | GyX = "); Serial.print(GyX);
//  // Serial.print(" | GyY = "); Serial.print(GyY);
//  // Serial.print(" | GyZ = "); Serial.println(GyZ);
//  delay(333);
}

So the commented portion of the code is used to read and print accelerations. Since this is in the same loop as the code for the motor, I'm sure that the delay(333) has a negative effect, but also when I tried step-by-step to include lines of code for accelerometer, the motor slowly starter to losing speed and steps...
I am well aware of these problems but I don't know how I could run both codes (for step motor and accelerometer) simultaneously, without interfering steppers code with the accelerometer's one... There wouldn't be a problem if I had 2 arduinos, but only having one, it seems quite difficult to be able to do both things at the same time...

I found some projects where people control the stepper with the accelerometer's signal, but that is different, because the stepper depends on the accelerometer's measurements, in my case, they both run independently on each other...Any suggestions how this could be fixed so that the motor could run normally while Arduino would be reading the acceleration measurements?

Luka