microchipmicrocontroller
I wanted to follow this tutorial as a first project.
I've got all the parts I need, but I could not purchase the chip that was linked in the article.
So I found another chip that sound similar (To a complete beginner) .
My question is, will I be able to use the chip I brought, in place of the one suggested in the article or am I trying something thats impossible?
You can drive a small bipolar stepper motor using an L293, SN754410, or L298
If you find a unipolar stepper motor (not uncommon in the paper advance on cheap printers) you can drive that relatively easily with discrete NPN transistor switches. In theory you can do a bipolar motor that way, but the circuit is a bit trickier (it's easy to get both the high and low transistors on and as a result short out the power supply, making them rather warm). Besides printers (copiers?) floppy drives are another salvage source, but hard drives switched to voice coils ages ago. Lots of surplus outfits will sell you motors; if you aren't looking for something powerful enough to run a machine tool you probably won't have to spend much.
Since you are very new to embedded programming as well, you might want to look at one of the "motor shield" type solutions - not necessarily to buy (though of course that is an option) but to study the plans and example software.
If working with a salvaged motor for which you don't have data, start with low voltage/current until you get movement. One thing that can be interesting to do is to take a <1 amp power supply and work out the series of voltage applications to the winding by hand connnecting them to slowly step the rotor. You can buy chips such as the L297 which generate this sequence to control the power driver chip, or you can do it yourself in software.
Actually making a motor may be fairly tricky, but people do make brushlesss motors which are stepper's lower-pole-count cousins. For early experiments ball bearings are likely not your greatest concern - plastic or oil-impregnated bronze sleeves might serve. But rollerblade wheel bearings are fairly cheap: mounting them is going to be a big part of the challenge (and a challenge which starts to stray from the topic of EE stackexchange)
PX#, PBx, etc are Port X, Pin #. PA1 is Port A Pin 1.
You would need a ground connection (all grounds should be connected together internally, i.e. they are the same), and depending on how you want to connect your leds, either 3.3v or Ground, and the other end into a PX#. (VBUS is the USB 5v, and not all pins on the Tiva are 5v tolerant!)
For the most part, the Tiva is like the ATMega on an Arduino. But the Arduino provides more than just hardware, it also adds a level of software abstraction by hiding certain tasks in libraries, like the digitalwrite function, which enables an output pin to a high or low.
The nice part is, the Arduino Language has a great port to Texas Instruments Launchpads, called Energia. It works with the Tiva Launchpad (Essentially a renamed Stellaris Launchpad) as seen here: Guide to the Stellaris LaunchPad (EK-LM4F120XL)
A fair deal of beginner and intermediate Arduino projects can move over easily with little rewriting, including your Traffic Light project.
Best Answer
Yes you can, but your tutorial breaks down because you are not following it.
The ATMEGA is actually a microcontroller. It requires more attention to setup the hardware as well it requires programming. If you are a complete bigger and want to follow the tutorial, then this might not be the approach you want to take. That's not to say you can't do it, it's just slightly more complicated to get working.
The MCP3008 is an external 10bit ADC. It is not as complicated to get working than a microcontroller.
If you can find a 10bit external ADC, you should be able to follow your tutorial pretty well.