Process for troubleshooting

Hello. I have read a fair bit on the forums and I have learned a fair bit. I have yet to get my first machine running but am very close. I have 3 axis self built. Nema 23 motor's and crap no name drivers that came with. I had all the motor's running but due to well stupidity I messed up my breakout board's 5v output. I bought a chz-labs cheap breakout and supply the 5v for the drivers another way. I wired the whole thing up and plug it in. The motor is stiff so it is powered. The Hal meter shows the direction pin swapping. No step signal mind you. The pins are 2, 4, 6 steps and 3,5,7 direction. I read to try tapping the step pin on the driver to ground to see if the motor moves and it does so 5v works. In my head I'm trying to understand that basically the paraport needs to ground pin 2 to get that motor to do a step? I read on charge-pump and kinda tried it without fully understanding it. I used default stepper settings with a future plan on reading how to tune as I don't know my driver specs. Any advice or links to info would be great.

Here are a couple pictures. One of the electronics and one of the Breakout Board.

Kylehopestolearn wrote:

Here are a couple pictures. One of the electronics and one of the Breakout Board.

That is not a BOB (well in theory it is) but it looks like it is connected to the PPort if it is then you won't be getting enough volts to the drives as the PP only puts out about 3.3v ish. So get a cheapo BOB that will give you the 5V required .

Also with that bob you have there is no isolation from the PP and you stand a good chance on letting the smoke out of the PP.

Thanks for the reply's. I know the BOB is basically a pin-out board. I respect that it does not have diode protection. I did not realize the step, dir, enum +-'s are just logic signals for the driver relay's. Make's a lot of sense now. I looked at ways to convert 3.3v to 5v to better drive the drivers from the para port but after seeing a 5axis breakout on amazon for $25 bucks I said why not. I do like trying to make things work with cheapo parts as it helps me understand the systems involved faster but I think this cheapo lesson was learned so $25 and ordered. Thanks so much.

I do like trying to make things work with cheapo parts as it helps me understand the systems involved faster but I think this cheapo lesson was learned so $25 and ordered. Thanks so much.

Or even cheaper www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1pc-5-Axis-CNC-Breako...8:g:WBIAAOSwgvVdOIPz