Vid6606 Stepper Driver with Air Manager

Support for Arduino in combination with Air Manager and Air Player

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marcel_felde
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Vid6606 Stepper Driver with Air Manager

#1 Post by marcel_felde »

Hi there,

I am still using many Vid6606 Driver boards with ArdsimX to drive my instruments.

https://www.propwashsim.com/store/stepperdriver

This makes things complicated as ArdsimX cannot find the Arduinos when Air Manager is started before. So I want to make it a "Air Manager Solution" only. ;)

Has anyone experiences on those drivers? For example which Pin to use for each driver motor?

I can connect the steppers directly with AM and Arduino.But this way I do need 4 pins per motor. With the drivers only 1 pin per motor.

Thanks in advance and greetings,

Marcel

JackZ
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Re: Vid6606 Stepper Driver with Air Manager

#2 Post by JackZ »

You’ll have to implement the driver with Message port, using the proper library. There is no plug and play solution in AM to use the vid6606

Jacques
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Ralph
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Re: Vid6606 Stepper Driver with Air Manager

#3 Post by Ralph »


marcel_felde
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Re: Vid6606 Stepper Driver with Air Manager

#4 Post by marcel_felde »

Wonderful! I must have overseen this, thanks Ralph!

What about the Pin assignment? I want to have them in the code right away so using them beside the development PC, in the simulator or through Air Player on a Raspberry is a matter of just inserting the instrument instead of assigning hardware... ;)

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Re: Vid6606 Stepper Driver with Air Manager

#5 Post by JackZ »

Ralph wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 4:20 pm No you don't :)
Have a look here: http://siminnovations.com/wiki/index.ph ... d#VID66-06
I stand corrected, that’s great news!
@marcel_felde The pins available for your card are summarized here (check the stepper motor column)
http://siminnovations.com/wiki/index.ph ... re_id_list

Jacques
My YouTube Chanel on the A320 (Real SOPs by an Airline Pilot IRL):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 0Q6SBASRqJ

marcel_felde
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Re: Vid6606 Stepper Driver with Air Manager

#6 Post by marcel_felde »

Thanks Jacques :) I meant which are the common pins, how do I declare them and then the lonely pin for the motors. ;)

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Ralph
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Re: Vid6606 Stepper Driver with Air Manager

#7 Post by Ralph »

If you used named hardware then Air Manager will ask you for the pins you need to connect. The motor pins depend on the board you're using.

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jph
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Re: Vid6606 Stepper Driver with Air Manager

#8 Post by jph »

Hi,
On the propwash board (from their site) the board has the 'Step' and 'Direction' pins are broken out to the edge connector. They appear to use the standard A B C D nomenclature. Each stepper will need two pins on the Arduino - totalling 8 pins in all as each stepper requires step and direction. - I am unsure as to why you say that the board you are using (the propwash) only requires one pin ?? - it doesn't, it requires 2pins per stepper.
But, no worries. ;)
All built into AM. You ONLY need to assign the step and direction for AM - so 2 pins for each stepper. The actual stepper outputs (4 per stepper) are 100% handled by the VID6606 IC so that is nothing to do with AM and you don't have to do or assign anything to these. You just need to ensure your connectors are wired correctly. If they worked before, they will be fine here also. The output side - ie the stepper drive part is ALL controlled from the chip. Is is nothing for you to be concerned with - apart from, as I said above - ensuring the wiring between stepper and the propwash board driver is correctly orientated.

-----------------------------

Just for sh!ts and giggles - if anyone wants to use the VID6606 for their own project then there is a much cheaper option than the propwash or similar boards - especially if you are driving a lot of X27 steppers !. if your soldering skills are reasonable - and they only have to be reasonable.....
then you can just buy the ICs (the VID66-06) and a SOP 28 to DIP28 adapter (the DIP28 uses the standard pin header pitch of the arduino or standard veroboard, project boards etc. - 2.54mm)
You only need to add a single electrolytic capacitor of around 22uF for the steppers (calculated at around 5uF per stepper in use), and a couple of 0.01 uF ceramic caps to the IC VDD VSS
They are not even absolutely necessary but better if you want to go the whole hog.
Total cost per unit is around 2 or 3 dollars. Each unit supplies 4 X27 steppers.
Just a thought for some who may like to roll their own.
If you look at the datasheet for the IC, it is also clear that the pin outputs for the steppers (ie Stepper 1 A,B,C,D) are all together in a block so perfect for a pin header with no additional track routing, this applies to the other 3 outputs as well. It couldn't be easier as far as wiring goes.
vid6606 assembly.jpg
Apologies for crappy image, my camera is being a bit of a begger today..... :roll:

Also, here is the datasheet for the VID6606 for the X27 type steppers.
VID6606 datasheet.pdf
(162.63 KiB) Downloaded 191 times
Have fun. :)
Joe
Joe. CISSP, MSc.

marcel_felde
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Re: Vid6606 Stepper Driver with Air Manager

#9 Post by marcel_felde »

Ralph wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 6:51 am If you used named hardware then Air Manager will ask you for the pins you need to connect. The motor pins depend on the board you're using.
Thanks Ralph! It is only about the coding. I know the pins documentation. ;)

As mentioned, I do not want to use the UI of Air Manager to assign the pins. I want to be able to plug the Arduino into a Raspberry Pi and upload the instrument and things work. As this solution may never be used by someone else (who has a PA-42 sim too with the same hardware instruments and steppers with needles with the same values? ;) ) it is not necessary to use the UI. It just make things more complicated for me. ;)

marcel_felde
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Re: Vid6606 Stepper Driver with Air Manager

#10 Post by marcel_felde »

jph wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 7:51 am Have fun. :)
Joe
Thank you so much, Joe!

In fact, I have those circuit boards, the chips and all electrical components here. But I am not very good at soldering and got those boards of Propwash in Las Vegas some years ago at the FS conference. In fact I am not able to use Simvim because there is only one UNO board there for the steppers and I need a lot more of them. There are about 50 steppers to drive... so I was stuck with Ardsim. And this does not operate well together with Air Manager on the same computer...

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