added idle() method to power down a motor to save energy or allow manual rotation of motor

[BiggRanger]

I've added an idle() method to power down the stepper motor pins in order to save energy or in my case allow a motor with a hand wheel to be manually operated. The only risk is if someone is keeping track of position by counting steps, while the motor is idle the motor may change position.

Stepper myStepper(2048, 5, 3, 4, 2);
myStepper.setSpeed(15);
myStepper.step(50);

myStepper.idle();   //Power down stepper
delay(5000);

myStepper.step(50); //step another 50 steps

[per1234]

You need to use a true tab separator between the keyword and identifier, not spaces.

[per1234]

Version is actually already at 1.1.3. A non-breaking API change should bump the minor version so the next release would be 1.2.0. But I think it's best to let Arduino handle the versioning since you don't necessarily want a version bump for every commit, only every release.

[per1234]

See previous comment regarding version.

[per1234]

See previous comment regarding version.

[per1234]

See previous comment regarding version.

[maehw]

Hi, I had the same issue, as can bee seen here in the forum.

However, I'd use a more compact code in the method itself:

{
    digitalWrite(motor_pin_1, LOW);
    digitalWrite(motor_pin_2, LOW);
    if (this->pin_count >= 4) {
        digitalWrite(motor_pin_3, LOW);
        digitalWrite(motor_pin_4, LOW);
        if (this->pin_count == 5) {
            digitalWrite(motor_pin_5, LOW);
        }
    }
}

[goldcove]

I second this commit.
I would only suggest that idel() is called automatically after each run. Why should the user remember to idle the motor? Common sense dictate that the programmering should not leave the engine in a possible overheating situation.

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