Summary
The overall electrical system consists of a web camera, a laptop, a 12V power supply, an Arduino Mega, stepper drivers and stepper motors, and two custom PCBs for interfacing with our breakbeam sensors and our stepper drivers.
We designed and ordered two custom PCBs for our project. The first was a mounting board for the breakbeam sensors, which we used to home our stepper motors. The second was an Arduino shield that interfaced with the stepper drivers and the breakbeam sensors. These boards were designed, ordered, populated, and tested by our team.
This project required speed, accuracy, and torque from the motors, and it is difficult to achieve all three at the same time. We would have liked to run the stepper motors at a higher voltage to increase the torque of the motors and hopefully cause them to skip steps less often.