Stepper Motor Improvements Discussion

[ZodiusInfuser]

This is a discussion of the current stepper implementation provided for Yukon

Prior to working on Yukon, I had little experience with driving stepper motors. Through writing examples for this product I have gained a basic understanding of their control but not enough to be confident that it will serve everyone's needs. As such, rather than create a performant C++ implementation from the outset (as I did for the motor and servo support of pimoroni-pico), I have instead created a MicroPython implementation to use as a basis for experimentation and defining the feature set. I have called this implementation OkayStepper 😆.

OkayStepper is a timer-based class that can drive a stepper motor between positions without blocking your main loop. I successfully used this class to drive a CNC plotter (see: https://x.com/ZodiusInfuser/status/1711781798689018289?s=20), though it does have its issues.

The current function list for the class is:

OkayStepper(motor_a: Motor, motor_b: Motor, current_scale: float=DEFAULT_CURRENT_SCALE, microsteps: int=DEFAULT_MICROSTEPS, debug_pin: Pin=None)
hold() -> None
release() -> None
move_to(step: float, travel_time: float, debug: int=True) -> None
move_by(steps: float, travel_time: float, debug: int=True) -> None
is_moving() -> bool
wait_for_move() -> None

As you can see, this functionality includes only what I needed to get the plotter working. There are likely many features it is missing that I have not yet found a need for, but would be required for other project uses. This where I could do with input from the community.

If you have feature requests or ideas for Yukon's stepper implementation, please share them below for discussion.