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GJK2010

Newbie

Joined: 07/10/2010
Location: United States
Posts: 17

Posted: 09:20pm 23 Mar 2011

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Hello,
Anyone here buy Probotix supplies or there stepper motor kits? I bought one of there kits which consist of Parellel board 2 driver boards and 2 stepper motor.
now wouldnt you think i should be able to hook it all up and connect it to my computer and run it with software such as bobcad or any or other cnc software?
at least mine would not run can anyone here help me out?
I do have some power going to the motors just enough to make them hmmm and heat up, but not enough to get them to move. i have been real carefull about letting them heat up i really dont wanna have to buy new ones.
Thanks,
GJK

Alasdair
Regular Member

Joined: 12/01/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 62

Posted: 11:12am 10 Apr 2011

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Hi there
I haven't used that brand of stepper motor, but from what you've
described, the driver board is feeding DC to the motor, and due
to it's low impedance it is pulling the supply down into ripple, causing
the hum and subsequent heating of the motor. The driver should
supply a sequence of square wave pulses to the motor which can
be a three or four pole (common options) which correspondingly will
rotate each pole step to a pulse. A couple of simple checks would
be to test the driver for each step phase output, using a cro is best,
but you can connect a small speaker with a hundred ohm resistor
and listen for a sharp buzz whose frequency is relative to the speed
set, test each phase from common with a five wire, and across phases
with four wire. If there are equal signals on each phase, you may have
two of four steps reversed which would cause the motor to stall, as
the sequence will be mixed up, this is easily done if the motors don't
have fixed connectors and if the motor is star wired one wrong wire
position will stop it dead. Five wire motors are usually star configuration.
Some stepper drivers will still drive an output without the motor connected
and with this option you could wire LEDs with suitable dropper resistors
to the outputs and with slow running speed, visually see the sequence
as the pulse train runs. This will also indicate any faults with the current
drivers and save destroying the motor.
Best of luck, regards Alasdair.

Amc-elec

GJK2010

Newbie

Joined: 07/10/2010
Location: United States
Posts: 17

Posted: 04:04pm 10 Apr 2011

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Alasdair,
Thanks for your advise i really appreciate it,I did find out my Problem One,wire didnt have a good connection
Again thanks for your advise
Take care
GJK

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