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Yes, exactly so :-)
That's sort of the idea behind the stepper motor - that you can relatively precisely control both the speed and the position without needing some sort of feedback device and...

I see no reason for it not to work.
But with an 8-pin device you're quickly running out of pins, step pulses out, solenoid drivers, perhaps a sensor of some sort to detect the items on the belt, a...

Mark,
Yeah, for precise positioning feeding the pulses back into the PIC and count them OR integrate generated velocity over time to calculate position. Possible but not exactly easy to get right,...

David,
You've done a great job so far!
As you might know the torque of step motor falls off as the speed increases. Increasing the drive voltage counteracts this drop in torque. Doubling the...