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Multiple IHM14A1 driver boards stacked on single MCU

Al-E-Bags
Associate III

Hi all.

I'm looking to gather more informatiion regarding the IHM14A1 stepper motor driver expansion board.  This particular product is now a 10 year old device (but new to me).  I have in my posession almost every document available and also the example application/code for its implementation via the SPN14 Cube Expansion package.

The example application is very good.  I have a IHM14A1 board running - without code modification - on both F303RE and F411RE Nucleo boards, driving a Nema17 motor well (within the confines of this example).

There doesn't seem to be - anywhere - information regarding the ability to 'stack' multiple IHM14A1's on top of a single (supported) MCU and have them run independently from each other.  This is something that ST Microelectronics lists (in it's markrting) as a key point however, the example provided is for single motor operation with no indication of how to operate them in a stacked configuration on a single Nucleo other than stating that it can be done.

As insight, I am working on a 'hobby' project which requires 4x Nema17 motors (in a 3 axis+Spindle CNC like configuration) in order to wind electric guitar pickups on a 'table top' coil winder.  The machine is already (mechanically) finished, working and somewhat tested using code snippets/libraries on the Arduino platform and other manufacturers stepper motor drivers.

In order to develop the project further, I am in the process of moving to a more 'unified' STM only solution.  I have, for example, 4x IHM14A1 driver boards (sufficient for each axis of the machine).  I have sufficient controllers to hook each driver to a discreet MCU (F411RE in this case).  This would seem to me to be 'overkill' in that one, possibly two F411RE Nucleo boards could handle all the required tasks, if the driver expansion boards were stacked and worked independently of each other.        

I am asking for some help on modifying the example code in order to achieve this.

 

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