Encoder to Stepper Controller

If you want to use any mechanical rotation in order to drive a stepper motor this board is for you. We needed this board for converting our industrial CNC machine to a 3D Printer. The mechanical huge 4th axis needs to be used as filament driver. We did not want to touch the complex and expansive CNC circuits. What we did here is just connect a the shaft of the quadrature rotary encoder to the 4th axis chuck. With this board we used standard 3d printer extruders with our industrial CNC.

The board has one DRV8825 stepper driver and an Atmega328P chip connected. You can think this board as one arduino with a built in stepper motor driver capability. I am sure people will find other possible usage for this board.

Pins:

VCC : Positive 5 volt DC for encoder

GND : Ground for encoder 

CHA : Encoder Channel A signal

CHB : Encoder Channel B signal

DIR  : DIR signal from the microcontroller if you like to use a bigger stepper motor driver other then the one on board.

STEP: Step signal from the microcontroller if you like to use a bigger stepper motor driver other then the one on board.

VDD : Positive 12-24 Volt DC for Motor driver

GND : Ground for motor power

1B,1A,2A,2B : Stepper motor coil connections

Schematics:

You can find the source files including the firmware at MakerStorage Github Repo