Control a Stepper Motor with Hall Effect Switches

After we learn how Hall Effect switches work, we’ll use them to build limit switches and homing sensors for stepper motors.

Article with code samples - https://dbot.ws/hallsw

Today we will learn about Hall Effect sensors and switches.

These devices are sensitive to magnetism and can be put to use in a number of interesting applications. Hall Effect switches are inexpensive and are very easy to use, with or without an Arduino.

After we do a few simple experiments we will see how to control a stepper motor using Hall Effect switches and an Arduino. We will look at two common arrangements:

Limit Switches - Controlling the end of travel of the motor, or of the mechanism being powered by the motor.

Homing Sensor - Having the motor or mechanism move to a predetermined position on command.

The hookup and code for all of the experiments are very simple, and if you don’t want to use Hall Effect switches you can substitute other switches instead.

In my experiment, I used a NEMA-17 size stepper, an A4988 stepper motor driver, and a 12-volt power supply. But you could easily adapt the design to use any stepper motor, driver, and power supply combination.

Here is what is covered in today's video:

00:00 - Introduction
04:24 - How Hall Effect switches work
07:08 - Simple Hall Effect experiments
10:24 - Simple Arduino experiment
14:19 - Build a Limit Switch
22:59 - Build a Homing Sensor

If you need more information or want a closer look at the code you’ll find an article at https://dbot.ws/hallsw