Advice on board for cnc

I am needing some advise on how to control my cnc. this is what I found,
https://www.amazon.com/Controller-MEGA2560-Soldered-Stepper-Drivers/dp/B08N578PRN/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=External+Stepper+Motor+Driver+Adapter&qid=1622545428&sr=8-7
what do you guys think

I don’t have much money with the pandemic and all. If this won’t work easily point me in the right direction.

A Ramps 1.4 setup will work fine for a LowRider or a MPCNC. The microprocessor used on the Arduino Mega board is the same microprocessor used in the Rambo 1.4 board sold by V1, and it is pretty common to see machines with this control board on the forum. The path of least resistance
to building a V1 CNC is to purchase a board that has V1 maintained firmware, and the Ramps 1.4 board is one board they directly support.

There are a few issues with this board to be aware of. According to a forum post, V1 used to sell these boards but stopped due to quality issues. They had a higher DOA rate than other boards, and they tend to be fragile. If you make mistakes in wiring, you can easily damage the clone Mega board, and the voltage regulators on the clone Mega tend to fail. On the plus side, if you do have a failure, you only have to replace the $15 mega board.

The firmware that V1 maintains is configured for DRV8825 drivers, so you will need to make changes to support the A4988 drivers. And you will need to set the jumpers and the voltage for these drivers manually. Neither configuration change is a big deal.

While not strictly necessary, I like having a display. It allows me to run jobs without having my laptop in the shop. You can buy one separately , or you can purchase a Ramps 1.4 kit that comes with the display.

can these be connected to like the 6600 motor drivers. and how do you do it.

You have the Ramps documentazione here: https://docs.v1engineering.com/electronics/ramps/
I suggest you to change driver as Robert told in his previous post.
Bye

yes I understand, will those run my nema 23

I’ve never use an external stepper like the TB6600, plus using Nema23 steppers indicate you are not building a LowRider. If you are going to be running your stepper driver beyond 16V, I’d use two separate power supplies (or a step down power converter), a 12V for the Ramps board, and a higher voltage one for the stepper drivers. These power supplies will need to share a ground.

Assuming you will be using Marlin, you will need to setup the firmware for the TB600 drivers. This is a very easy (and supported) change. It will be in this section of configuration.h:

#define X_DRIVER_TYPE DRV8825
#define Y_DRIVER_TYPE DRV8825
#define Z_DRIVER_TYPE DRV8825
#define X2_DRIVER_TYPE DRV8825
#define Y2_DRIVER_TYPE DRV8825
#define Z2_DRIVER_TYPE DRV8825
#define E0_DRIVER_TYPE DRV8825
#define E1_DRIVER_TYPE DRV8825

There appears a couple of different ways of connecting the drivers to the board. The two wiring methods are show in the third image of this Amazon item. You need to identify the direction, step, and enable pins in each socket on the Ramps 1.4 board. These pins are label on the pinout diagram for the Ramps 1.4 board, but they are difficult to read. You find it easier to look at the pinout for the A4988 driver to identify the pins. You only need to hookup the direction, enable, and step pins.

Note that if you are not going to have endstops nor a display, and you are going to use external drivers, then you are will get little benefit from a Ramps 1.4 board. You might be better off connecting directly to the Arduino Mega and skipping the Ramps 1.4 board.

The documentation and advice here is focused on the V1 machines (not that I mind answering questions from other CNC machines, it’s cool). But beware that you’re asking about TB6600 and Ramps, and Nema23. Those are not popular drivers or motors here. Nema23 only dictates the size of the motor case, and nothing about the motors. You need to do some more research and look into exactly what the specs of the motors and the drivers are to see if they match. The ramps can’t support anything more than 12V out of the box, so you will have to do some work to supply the drivers with more power.

If you are trying to save money, why go with the TB6600 and Nema23s at all? They are probably overkill, wasting money and current.

2 Likes

went with these cause i had them now back when I was going to go one way found out different.