Mystery hardware

Yes, this is a clear improvement.
With this computer there is no painfull noises from the motors.
No axis-leds light up before asked to and everything seems to behave much better.

I am using the pinout from the original docs, they seem to be fine.

I have just one motor connected now. On the X-axis.
So I fire up EMC and try to jog the x-axis. The motor moves, but only a fraction. No continuous movement only small jolts. And a sligt squeeking sound. Like the one before only much quieter.
The led for the axis blinks very slightly when I press the key.

I have the Dip set to 25% current, can this be the reason?

As a side note, I have 4 motors, 2 for the Y. How do I make that work? Or should we tacle that one later?

As a side note. If I grab the motor shaft and hold down the jog key. I can feel the shaft move a little CW then a little CCW and it just keeps going back and forth like that.

I have made a little video showing the behavior. Apollogies for the mess, the ugly fish tank (no fish in it) and the poor focus job. DSLR's can make ok video, but it is very much a two-handed operation and I needed the other hand elsewhere.




I have tried switching x-dir with x-step and that did not help. The driver did nothing.
I have also tried the configuration suggested by cncbasher earlier in the thread. No luck there either.

In fact it seems like this is the right pinout since any other combination will not make the motor do anything at all, but thats just my theory.

At no point can I turn the motor freely by hand. But what could happen if I try to reverse some of the wires? The motors are not wired by me so I cannot say if it is any good.

Although this computer seems to work better it actually have a max jitter of 44000 or so. Can this have anything to do with it?

No continuous movement only small jolts. And a sligt squeeking sound. Like the one before only much quieter.

That could be the stepper motor stalling from trying to accelerate or move too fast, Try drastically reducing your acceleration and velocity.

Rick G

That could be the stepper motor stalling from trying to accelerate or move too fast, Try drastically reducing your acceleration and velocity.

They are at 1 and 30
I tried lowering them in the "test this axis" window and did have an effect. I could see and feel the motor "jittering" back and for with a different frequency and taking longer to get up in frequency, but still only jolting.

I could try reversing one of the phases on the motor... would that make any sense and can I damage the motor doing it?

I have the Dip set to 25% current, can this be the reason?

Well it could be part of the problem, but if you have the motors separate from the machine and not driving anything not the whole story.

Do the motors get hot?

If the drivers came set for 75% and you think that might be right you may want to try a little higher amps, but try lower speeds first.

Rick G

I have tried both lower speeds and higher current.
The higher current just made motor jiggle with more force so it might be needed for when it is installed, but it is not the problem here apparently.

I have tried switching x-dir with x-step and that did not help. The driver did nothing.

Do you mean it jitters when connected one way and does nothing the other way?

In theory if you do not have a direction pin connected the motor should still spin one direction, but only one direction.
The fact the led are flickering only when you make a move is probably a good sign (If they are motion leds)

But it sounds like you are making progress.

Rick G

You may also want to go back and adjust your step and direction times, make them MUCH longer and look for change.

Rick G