Electronic – How to make a picaxe service remote for a pioneer ir controller for a DVR – 660H and DVP 540H DVD recorder

You're skipping steps.

Full drive mode for a stepper looks like this:

 Step A  A' B  B'
  1   1  0  1  0
  2   1  0  0  1
  3   0  1  0  1
  4   0  1  1  0
  1   1  0  1  0

One of the A windings and one of the B windings are always on, and the rotor is resting halfway between the two powered windings. This gives you maximum torque.

Half stepping sacrifices some torque to give you twice the resolution:

 Step  A  A' B  B'
  1    1  0  1  0
  1.5  1  0  0  0
  2    1  0  0  1
  2.5  0  0  0  1
  3    0  1  0  1
  3.5  0  1  0  0
  4    0  1  1  0
  4.5  0  0  1  0
  1    1  0  1  0

The half steps don't have as much torque, since only one winding is on part of the time. But, the half steps are close to a full step, so it doesn't take much to get the rotor there.

You're skipping the full steps and just using the half steps. You might also be sequencing the windings wrong. I can't tell because your numbering scheme is atypical.

See a reference like this one for more information and pictures.

With one master node and multiple PICAXE-08M2 I2C slaves, "diode-mixing" approach may be the easiest/cheapest solution or substitute an X1 chip.

• single pull-up resistor for the comm. line Ea
• each slave connects data via anode of Schottky diode & cathode to PICaxe
• PICaxe input is connected to the comm line via a 10K resistor
• Use simple SEROUT and SERIN operation with qualifiers to address each node
• many others have implemented such a Serial protocol, so don't reinvent the wheel.

Grounding, shielding, impedance control and low capacitance wiring is essential. eg 7pF/ft

can you say let's have a party line? Consult with those who have done it, after you try it.