Re: Manual motor movement and saving the steps

There is no standard way or approach to do this. It is not part of the stepper concept that there is any feedback (like there is on many other systems). There are no industrial components or approaches that can do this.

It is an interesting concept for a hack. I just tried to connect a stepper to my oscilloscope. To me it seems near impossible without calibration (or modelling of the stepper)

That is to say, you need the characteristic of the signal the stepper gives out so you can compare it to what you read and then if you know the speed and steps for that signal you have your info. Maybe you can do that calibration by connecting one stepper to another stepper and make some signal fit to varying speeds and steps

But even with calibration/modelling it seems very very difficult. The amplitude of the signal changes greatly dependent on speed and change in direction will be very hard to catch. Anything is possible but unless you are seriously skilled at signal treatment and don't mind paying a lot of money for a circuit that can analyse these then I think it is fair to say that it is not a viable approach.

I have uploaded a video of me turning a stepper here:

[goo.gl]