This repository contains arduino sketches (cpp) for stepper motor control, loadcell data reading and a linear scale reading. These sketches can be used to operate a custom made low cost minitensile machines.
A minitensile machine is a table top tensile machine for testing samll specimen. This set of sketches were developed to control the stepper motor drilving the ball screw pair through a set of gears. The motCtrl.ino sketch has to be uploaded to the arduino (I had used this sketch on nano and uno) which need to be connected to the drive controlling the stepper motor. A stepper motor drive has connection points for enable, direction, pulse inputs, which need to be connected to digital output pins on the arduino, as suggested in the sketch. The pins can be changed but please ensure that the physical pin numbers match with those mentioned in the sketch. Different integer inputs through arduino serial monitor execute different functions as described in the sketch e.g. stop, jog forward, jog reverse and test at three cross head speeds. If one wants to have few more number of cross head speeds, he has to modify the sketch accordingly.
The sketch readLoadDisplacement_50Kg.ino reads the data sent from the linear scale and the ADC at a set frequency (can be increased or decreased by playing with delay). This data is printed to the serial monitor from where it can be copied and pasted. I used CoolTerm which is an easy-to-use terminal for communication with hardware connected to serial ports. It allows the data to be saved to a text file. This package can be downloaded from cnet. There are other similar tools which can be used alternatively.
Thus one requires two arduinos, one for controlling the stepper motor and another for data acquisition. These two arduinos should be connected via two usb ports and controlled via two serial monitors. I used serial monitor to control motor and the coolterm UI for data acquisition.