Hello!

So, I wish to learn how to control motors with a microcontroller. I am studying computer science and we have a course which makes us learn ARM assembly with this board, which is sold for 50€ and has ARM9 on it:

http://shrani.si/f/1K/1T/roTKjwQ/dscn0826.jpg
http://shrani.si/f/1C/12i/4tXD7dDz/dscn0827.jpg
http://shrani.si/f/2W/Uw/uakZ4vS/dscn0829.jpg
http://shrani.si/f/2q/u2/4gNS5QqB/dscn0830.jpg

Plans:
http://laps.fri.uni-lj.si/fri-sms/datoteke/shema.pdf
http://laps.fri.uni-lj.si/fri-sms/datoteke/AT91SAM9260.pdf

I thought about buying Arduino since it has such broad support but before I do that I wish to know if there's anything I can do with this thing I bought.

I wish to control something like this:
http://shrani.si/f/3C/12i/25JTGwSm/dscn0832.jpg
http://shrani.si/f/u/RE/4SrXVZ11/dscn0833.jpg

I have never done something similar before and in school we only used onboard timer, onboard LED diode, parallel IO and serial debug unit. I dont see any practical value in those things, much less any connection to controlling a motor.

I would like to know how/where must I connect the motor to get even started, is it even possible and do I need any additional things to get me started. Thank you!

PS: If anyone has any useful begginer's guides on controlling motors its much appreciated. Thank you!

 

This should be completely possible, but both servo and stepper motors need more control than just connecting power, so it will involve some programming and some circuit design to get them working.

From a microcontroller point of view, motor control is simple and does not need fast state changes, so just about any microcontroller would be able to control either of those motors.

The stepper will probably need more electronic circuitry because the coils need more current than a microcontroller pin can supply, but its programming can be as simple as emitting a series of the right patterns of four bits to four IO pins.

The servo can probably run by directly wiring its power to the board's power and its signal in to an IO pin, but will probably need more programming expertise because it needs good control over the timing of a regular series of pulses.

There is a lot of information on the internet on how to operate both types of motors; you should probably start by reading the basics of stepper and servo control.