What do you really get for a $350 desk top engraver ?

just opened the software and the manual tells you nothing about any of the features i was curious to see how bad it was going to be and now i know god help me

Told you it was horrible

Not sure about the "T" model, but the "Y" model drive software calls following error "Position Deviation Alarm Threshold".

 

i found a few videos but they don't cover much. But i think the alarm part should be easy enough. i think i got enough info to set that and save the new settings to the drive. seems like after the settings are saved you need to cycle the power once after that if the info i found is correct? i don't see how it would hurt anything after you exit out of the software.
i think once you change the factory setting from 4,000 to something small i will see conditions for lost steps, With the current settings if you have a condition that causes lost steps it just corrects until it gets back to where the encoder says it should be i could see that causing surface finish issues if that is in fact what is going on?

i think the first step is to get that changed and saved to the drives and do some testing to see if i get alarms or not. if i do get alarms then i need to figure out if it can be corrected in the internal drive settings or something else needs done? if all else fails i can try a 48V power supply or just get a bigger nema 23 motor if it leads back to the X axis. if that does not help then i will have to live with it as is or go back to the drawing board and make reductions.

anyways it's a way to collect more information to narrow things down so thanks for the help everyone.

The drive will attempt correct for lost steps up to the tolerance - this is a separate setting from the alarm.  If it can't correct to within the tolerance window, the drive will fault and the alarm signal will be triggered.

I think the tolerance is reasonably tight from the factory - it's just the alarm that's silly.

Regarding the power supply - increasing voltage won't provide more 'power'.  It will only permit the motor to turn higher RPM before losing steps.

On steppers, the 'power' - torque, in other words - is determined by the amps available to the motor/drive.  If your 36v supply can't manage enough amps to the drive that would result in lower torque.  Or if the drive is programmed to only use half the amps the motors are capable of handling.

You mentioned before that you adjusted the microsteps without using the software.  It's possible you accidentally set the drive max amps lower than desired via one of the dip switches.

I suggest you set the dip switches to whatever position means 'software program only' and set the max amps based on the motor, input steps/rev, and everything else via the programming software.  Note that inside the software, you won't directly set 2/4/8/10/N 'micro-steps'; rather, you'll be determining how many input pulses are required per revolution and may need to adjust LCNC's steps/unit output.

I've used similar Nema23 closed-loop steppers from Stepperonline on a medium sized plasma, and they had a remarkable amount of torque.

i think what they referred to as follow error is what i was looking at as an indicator to test with if that value is set high then i can set it low to force thing to kick an alarm. that would show me which drive is doing the most correction i think so i can focus on the task in the right place and basically narrow things down some.

on small bench top or desk top size machines i have had good luck with 283 oz/in motors and those are what i have all around on this build. i was looking at bigger ones and if it would actually be an issue with 1 axis like the X i could go up to a 425 oz/in and keep the same size saft and frame size. so that could be a work around depending on where things land with testing. the drives are even the same too.

if this were open loop things would be more out in the open as far as lost steps are concerned.

added edit here. i did see about setting the dip switched to default and setting the micro stepping in the drive. that was said in the one video i found for this particular drive. so that is not an issue either. 

i went back and paused that one video to take a closer look at what is going on inside the software. i think i found my adjustment needed.

the setting from the factory is 50% of the holding current. it's under closed loop holding current and has a set range of 0 to 100 % so you should be able to increase that. one thing i did notice after running the machine for 3 or 4 hours was how cool the motors were. i figured that they would has least be warm to the touch. the fact that they were still room temp still had me surprised. now i know why.

if i were to running things in open loop mode i think i would see they are getting at least warm.

i think the 50% setting is causing the correction to to kick in constantly and creates an oscillation. i think in an ideal situation they should never have to compensate so you have smooth motion but have a little extra in case you do need it.

i really do think that is my chatter problem. since i did not get in there i only have 50% because of the factory setting. i will have to find one of those cables and confirm this for sure.

it turns out that you need a RS232 Adapter Cable to USB 2.0 to work with the cable they send so you. I can't get into the drive to make changes. I do not have one and had to order one so i am locked out of the drive until Friday if it comes on time.

i'm wondering if Stepper-online and Leadshine are tied together somehow? the software is just about identical? anyways Leadshine  has a quick start guide for the programming software that is much more helpful than what Stepper-online has which is nothing basically. I just found the quick start guide so looks like i need to spend some time searching through that for clues. i managed to read a drive and got that part sorted out so that's a little bit of progress

Some of the Stepperonline products are re-branded Leadshine items.  Some are identical, some have firmware changes.

It's possible that the Leadshine software will work with your Stepperonline drives, but don't be surprised if it doesn't.

My SO T6 servos are rebranded LS, and while the LS software will communicate with the T6 drives, there are some software features (i.e smarter auto-tune) that are disabled in both versions of the software.

i'm using matching software for the Stepper- online drive's. but the quick start PDF Leadshine has goes into a lot more detail that is the information i need.at this point i have done far more reading than tinkering.

the Leadshine pdf gives you a good understanding of the layout of the software. The tree on the far left helps you sort the 8 main sections of drive settings the first main section looks to just basic info pulled for dip switch settings and the last main section if factory settings. so the main focus should be the 6 other main section and the subsections in those 6 main sections.

it looks like you might be able to record the wave form from test moves. I am guessing helps adjust the PID but that is a bit beyond my understanding at the moment.

bottom line is there is a lot of stuff going on in these drives and probably why you don't see to much on the topic.