Hi,

I'm not sure if I'm in the right place, so apologies in advance if this is not the correct forum, but I'm not sure exactly what I'm having trouble with! I have a telescope motor drive that I want to drive at a slightly different speed from the commercial controller.

This site, http://telescope.marford.me.uk/Proje...controller.htm , gives a very simple circuit, and some associated code. The circuit just uses a PIC16F627 to send timed pulses to an L293D, which is then meant to drive the 2-coil stepper.

The code worked on MPLAM SiM after a minor re-jig, and the circuit does indeed turn the motor round. But with no torque. The commercial hand controller has no problems producing oodles of power, but my puny pulses produce a maximum of about 40ma in each coil.

The site owner does not respond to e-mails, so I am looking elsewhere for assistance. In fact, the circuit provides quite a jerky drive even with no load (and fails completely with even a slight load), so perhaps I should be looking for a better microstepping answer? But that mus wait until I can discover just what I am doing wrong with this simple system. Has anyone got any ideas....?