Im having trouble with 1 stepper on my y axis, it just doesnt seem to hold the same amount of torque as the others.
I just finished upping the current and nothing changed, 1.2v to 13.7. No reason for that value, i just turned further than intended and left it.
I have 84oz steppers laying around from an old plotter project that derailed and i never finished so i was considering swapping the y axis out and wanted to see if anyone knew of any considerations that i need to make first.
Stepper 17hd48002h-22b
I have the skr 1.2 with tcm2209 drivers.
Pretty sure the ranges of all parts are good enough.
Any other useful tips for things to check would be great.
Knowing the exact behavior you are seeing would help narrow down the problem. First, check the grub screws holding the pulley to the shaft of the stepper motor. Assuming the screws are okay, then you can swap components around to check the stepper driver, the wiring, and the stepper motor. A wiring issue is the most likely of the three. It is rare for the stepper motor to be bad.
The behavior is that my right side y axis stepper slips quite a bit faster than the others.
Ive checked and im fairly certain its not jumping teeth on the belt. The gear seems to stall as well.
The set screws are snug.
I just spent like 5 million hours machining aluminum, i have very little faith any electronic is designed to take that kind of abuse so i wouldnt be surprised if something gave up inside it.
I wish i had a strain gauge or something with a known weight so i could verify with something other than my gut, but i know the rear x axis stepper pulled me off balance when i was trying to compare them all but the y skips with barely more than my hand on the rail.
Step 1: Swap the Y1 and Y2 stepper motor connections at the control board. If the issue swaps to the other side, then your problem is the stepper driver. If not…
Step 2: Return the wiring to their original configuration, and swap stepper motors from one side to the other. If the issue follows the stepper motor, then the motor or the wiring attached to the motor is bad. If it does not follow, the remaining wiring is bad.
So, i played around quite a bit. The set screw on the non skipping stepper was actually lose… not the one with the issue ironically.
Flipped em, as suggested… still weak.
I have a spare tcm2209 from originally planning to go with end stops and never following thru, clearly a theme, and it seems to have cleared things up.
At least i figured it out before swapping steppers.
You should take apart a stepper sometime. They are dead simple. It is literally some bearings holding a bunch of magnets inside a twisted ball of wire. The bearings could be failing, or there may be a wiring problem (usually where the wire bends, not inside the motor case).
Glad the new driver seems to have fixed it though.
I have taken one apart and it worked afterward (I needed a longer screw on a leadscrew one). But I should have been clear. I meant take one apart to learn. It will not likely go back together.
Yeah but the wire is coated and if the coating gets too hot and melts it can short and reduces the power of the electromagnet.
The aluminum i milled for 43 quintillion hours could have dropped chips in the tiny hole, which definitely happen, and smeared material around the stator, commutator… whatever part… and reduced the power of the magnet…
Hell that could have shorted the stepper internally and smoked the driver…
who really knows, without tearing things apart its really anyones guess… Although, the above all seem extremely unlikely.
I just generally try to convince people it isn’t the stepper motor. It usually is helpful. The motors are much more durable than people think. Obviously, they will not survive everything.
9/10, weird problems are wiring or a loose pulley. Those are things people overlook and start searching for “bad stepper motor” and miss the obvious.