Control Stepper Motor Speed & Direction with Arduino and a Potentiometer

Ever wondered how to control the speed and direction of a stepper motor with just a twist of your wrist using a potentiometer? In this Arduino stepper motor tutorial, I'll guide you through the entire wiring process so that every connection is crystal clear - from how to connect your stepper motor to the right motor driver and then to an Arduino Uno as well as adding a potentiometer to the circuit.

Then I'll break down the Arduino sketches, line-by-line, so you can truly understand the code and confidently modify them for your Arduino and stepper motor projects.

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🎬 VIDEO CHAPTERS: How to Control Speed & Direction of Stepper Motors using a Potentiometer and Arduino
0:00 Welcome
0:16 Potentiometer Pinout
0:47 How to Wire a Stepper Motor to an Arduino Uno
1:17 How to Power Stepper Motors with Arduino
2:01 How to Wire a Potentiometer to an Arduino Uno
2:33 Arduino Code: How to Control Stepper Motor Direction with a Potentiometer
7:43 Arduino Code: Using map() function for Precise Direction Control
10:01 Arduino Code: How to Control Stepper Motor Speed with a Potentiometer
12:01 Arduino Code: Improve Stepper Motor Speed Response
12:47 Troubleshooting
12:54 Join my Community for Live Events & More Code!

💬 Have any questions or want to share your own experiences, tips and advice about controlling stepper motors with Arduino? Drop a comment below – I love hearing from you!

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#arduino #arduinoproject #arduinotutorial #steppermotor #steppermotors #arduinocode #arduinomotors #arduinoprogramming #robotics

[sergioaguilarrudametkin]

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your tutorials! I am a college EEE & Physics professor at a California state university and have recommended your videos and content to my students. I am a beginner with microcontrollers but based on your clear content I have been able to put together multiple projects that I plan on teaching. Please keep up the wonderful work! You're doing great!

[jeffnixon]

Rachel, you are brilliant. Your teaching is sequential, understandable and fantastic. I also love your passionate, exciting delivery. I’m 72 and new to Arduino and have learnt much from your videos. Cheers. Jeff..Australia

[jessi]

This is very helpful to see the actual mounting, rigging of the motor in a piece of wood, then how to attach to the motor spindle. I would like this video format for the wiper motor ( I know you have videos with wiper motor) but how to mount the motor, how to manipulate it, how much weight can it handle etc.

[bountyhunterbreaks]

Rachel, you always do a great job on these. It's awesome to see the progression of doing the coding. I miss joining the live chats but it always seems like work short circuits my plans to hang out. Maybe I'll hit one before Halloween this year?

[Onnetish]

I've recently begun working with Arduino and I'm having difficulty understanding how solenoids function and how to integrate them into circuits. I've learned a lot (if not all) from what you've taught.

[danpro]

I appreciate your simple easy to understand instructions. I'm new to this so explaining the basics helps a lot.🤔

[naboulsikhalid]

detailed, funny, and comprehensive. Thank you Rach

[SusanAmberBruce]

Thanks for this video, I have a project in mind using lasers that's going to need stepper motors, and this gives me the basics.

[meiowalot]

Yes!!!! Perfect video for a Saturday morning.

[Dubot-fv]

I love these stepper motors. You can do so much with them.😁👍

[BariumCobaltNitrogn]

What good timing you have. I have a stepper motor sitting on my desk here next to an arduino, a multimeter, a bread board, some jumper wires and a big bowl of ice cream. Priorities. I'm going to power up my telescope and this is day 1. Ohm out the 6 wires, make a parts list, some drawings... wish me luck!

[Iskelderon]

Awesome! I have an upcoming scale model project that will need to rotate a turntable 90 degrees right or left and NOT at full speed, so this seems like just that I need to get started.

[DBB-KEDUO]

When I was a kid... I wondered "how do I make my own robot"🤷🏻 ...
This stepper motor is the first step... thanks! Now I just need to build the rest of my robot 🤖.
🥰

[FixunaMorgia]

Thank you so much for explaining it all so well! As a beginner i learn a lot from your videos!

[clifc]

Wonderful Video Thank You. Got some stepper motors in my GM dash gauges I gotta replace. Your just Brilliant; Thank You for sharing your talent.

[dudasertorio]

2nd =] LOVE ❤ this channel, Rachel ! Excellent explanation !! Thank you very much !!!

[charliestevenson]

This is very good, your explanations are very clear. So in effect your speed control of the motor is in real time, so you could use another input like from a tachometer to use it to match the speed of rotation of the stepper motor to the wheel (or whatever) connected to the tachometer ?

Bonjour, thank you for this video. I have a question: the execution is sequential, so if we have 2 stepper motor, they move each after other ?

[jamesabber]

Good tutorial and code. But I can give you a hint for how to make the code a bit better:

You create a variable "stepsPerRevolution", but you actually want a constant instead. Here I would declare a constant with "#define STEPS_PER_REVOLUTION 2048" in line 7 and use this constant instead when creating an instance of Stepper in line 14. You could also do the same for variables "rpm" and "potPin".

One advantage is that you no longer use memory to store the value of the variables that never change. Another is that the code becomes more readable because it is clear that it is a constant instead of a variable.

[leesmith]

Love your channel ❤, Instead of a potentiometer can you install a smart thermometer and have a servo motor move with temperature. Like 1 degree in temp it moves say from 1 o'clock to 2 o'clock and be able to always go back to the same set spot on temp. Theres s good project for ya and id like to know how to. Just learned you need a servo motor because it knows its position where a stepper motor doesn't and you'll need an ESP32 because of its wifi and bluetooth to connect to the smart thermometer which i want to be anywhere in the room.