VAL3000

Valar Motion — Valar Systems motor controllers

The easiest, fastest, cheapest, and safest way to spin a stepper motor wirelessly. Valar Motion is a family of tiny Wi-Fi stepper controllers built around a Trinamic TMC2209 driver — precisely control a motor's distance, speed, current, and stall behaviour within minutes of unboxing, from any browser, with no Home Assistant required.

All three boards share the same TMC2209 driver, a synchronous DC/DC converter, three buttons, end-stop inputs, and a USB-C port for flashing. They differ only in the microcontroller and — on the 3101 — an onboard magnetic encoder.

Buy them at valarsystems.com. Sold out? Hit the "Notify me when available" button — that's the only way we know to make more.

What's on the board

The board packs a full wireless stepper controller into a footprint that bolts onto the back of a NEMA 17 motor (the four mounting holes line up with the motor face):

• Espressif ESP32 — Wi-Fi microcontroller with native USB (C3 on the VAL3000; C6 with Thread/Zigbee/Matter/BLE on the VAL3100/3101)
• Trinamic TMC2209 stepper driver — silent StealthChop + sensorless StallGuard
• 5–24 V synchronous DC/DC converter — efficient on-board regulation from the motor supply, no separate logic power needed
• Three buttons for manual open / close / Wi-Fi-reset
• Motor hookup — the VAL3100 / VAL3101 ship with a 4-pin screw terminal pre-soldered for the stepper (alongside the JST-XH); the VAL3000 has the JST-XH connector (screw terminal included to solder on, or wire directly to the pads)
• Power — 2.1 × 5.5 mm barrel and a 2-pin screw terminal, plus USB-C for flashing
• Reverse-polarity protection on the VAL3100 / VAL3101 (the VAL3000 has none — mind the polarity)

Board anatomy (VAL3000 shown; the VAL3100/3101 share the same layout on an ESP32-C6).

Quick start

Setup takes about three minutes:

1. Connect any bipolar (4-wire) stepper motor.
2. Connect a 12–24 V, 2 A+ power supply (2.1 × 5.5 mm barrel, center positive).
3. Press one of the buttons — the motor starts and stops.

That's it. When you're ready to customize, plug in USB-C and flash a build below.

⚠️ VAL3000 only: the VAL3000 has no reverse-polarity protection — double-check your supply is center-positive before powering on. The VAL3100 / VAL3101 add reverse-polarity protection.

Flash a board (the fast way)

The board ships bare. Grab the prebuilt binary for your board from the latest release and flash it from your browser at web.esphome.io with a USB-C cable — no toolchain, no soldering, no Home Assistant required. On first boot the board makes its own Wi-Fi hotspot; connect, join it to your network, and control it from any browser. It's discoverable in Home Assistant over the ESPHome API too.

First-time flashing note: the USB-C port connects straight to the ESP32 (USB CDC — no USB-to-UART bridge). If the board isn't detected on a brand-new unit, enter download mode manually: hold BOOT, tap RESET, then release BOOT. After the first upload this is automatic.

Build from source

python3 -m venv venv && source venv/bin/activate
pip install esphome
cp secrets.example.yaml secrets.yaml     # not needed for a bare flash

esphome compile boards/val3100/val3100.yaml
# → factory image at:
#   boards/val3100/.esphome/build/val3100/.pioenvs/val3100/firmware.factory.bin

Swap val3100 for val3000 or val3101. CI (.github/workflows/build-firmware.yml) builds all three on every push and attaches *.factory.bin / *.ota.bin to tagged releases.

Firmware updates (OTA)

Boards can update themselves over Wi-Fi — no computer needed — by fetching the newest release asset for their board. Release asset names are an API: keep val3000.factory.bin, val3100.ota.bin, etc. stable so units already in the field keep updating after any repo move. See docs/MIGRATION.md.

Detailed features

Trinamic TMC2209 + StallGuard

The TMC2209 is one of the best stepper drivers on the market — feature-rich yet affordable, with silent StealthChop operation and sensorless stall detection. StallGuard stops the motor whenever the load exceeds a threshold you set — no limit switches needed — which makes the board safe for curtains, windows, blinds, and anything that could pinch or jam. The driver is controlled over a single-wire UART, so speed, current, microstepping, and stall sensitivity are all tunable live from the web UI.

Flexible motor connector

Connect a motor three ways: the on-board 4-pin JST-XH plug, the included 4-pin screw terminal (solder it to the exposed pins), or by soldering the motor wires directly to the board.

USB-C + three buttons

Flash firmware and monitor serial over USB-C — no programmer needed. Three on-board buttons give physical open / close control plus a Wi-Fi reset, handy for products built on the board (our Ropener curtain opener uses exactly this).

Repository layout

valar-motion/
├── boards/
│   ├── val3000/val3000.yaml   # ESP32-C3 pin map + substitutions
│   ├── val3100/val3100.yaml   # ESP32-C6 + status LED
│   └── val3101/val3101.yaml   # ESP32-C6 + status LED + AS5600 encoder
├── common/
│   └── valar-core.yaml        # shared, board-independent behaviour
├── hardware/                  # PCB, schematics, libraries (per board)
├── docs/                      # datasheets, guides, media
└── .github/workflows/         # CI: builds a factory + OTA bin per board

The important idea: behaviour lives in common/valar-core.yaml, which every board pulls in as a package. Each boards/<board>/<board>.yaml is a thin wrapper that only sets that board's chip, GPIO pin map, and OTA asset name. Change the core once and all three boards inherit it.

Hardware & documentation

• Hardware guide: docs/hardware-guide.md — power/voltage/current/heat, driving the TMC2209 (UART vs STEP/DIR), and mounting to a NEMA 17
• PCB / KiCad sources: hardware/val3000, hardware/val3100 (the VAL3101 uses the VAL3100 board with the AS5600 encoder populated — see hardware/val3101)
• Schematic (PDF): docs/val3000/schematic.pdf
• Trinamic book (PDF): docs/val3000/Trinamic_Book_V4.pdf — in-depth guide to Trinamic drivers
• TMC2209 datasheet: analog.com

Applications

This repo is the board firmware. Products built on these boards live in their own repos and layer their behaviour on top of common/valar-core.yaml — e.g. The Ropener, a smart curtain opener, which adds cover/position logic and homing on the same boards.

License

Licensed under the CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2 — Strongly Reciprocal.