This is not specifically related to MPCNC. But I ask here cuz you guys are knowledgeable and awesome.
I am building a new machine of a different design little heavier duty and I want to be able to use stronger NEMA 23s (to cut metals)
Is hooking up the TB6600 drivers really as easy as the 3 wires (Step,Dir and Enable)from the RAMPS, a common ground and some power then plug in your NEMA23?
Have you checked out the FAQ’s? 23’s will do nothing to help in metal cutting and could actually make it worse adding mass to a moving system.
To answer your question I do believe that is all the info you need from the ramps to use other drivers.
I know for the MPCNC 23’s would be a bad idea.
But for a heavier machine with heavier gantrys i would think it would be required.
Im driving an 8’ machine very easily with the mpcnc setup. It is much heavier.
I’m looking at converting my little metal lathe to CNC and it’s the type of project where Nema23 makes sense. One rod is fixed, the other is mounted in some fairly heavy metal. Do you think a RAMPS is overkill when I need to only control two big steppers? I’ve seen some other shields that support stepper drivers, but haven’t looked into it enough to see if they’ll drive the steppers I have (425 oz-in).
I know this is a bit old subject but since I’ve just started wiring everything together and I also have TB6600 drivers with the same question
I’m using MKS CD v1.0 wiring harness
It looks just like a DRV8825 or A4988 drivers but it’s actually only a bit smarter connection board and it should prevent interference
This is actually it:
As mentioned by the OP it has Enable, Step, Dir and ground
TB6600 (Chinese clone of it to be exact) has Enable, Dir and Pul (that would be Step I presume) but it has all 3 in + and -
So, do I connect the ground from MKS board to all the minuses and EN, DIR and STEP to respective +5V ports or do I connect EN, DIR and STEP to respective ports and then take +5V directly from RAMPS and connect it to all 3 +5V ports
Here’s the picture of the TB6600 to see how ports are marked
Hope I’ve explained correctly what I’m actually wondering about
Thank you!
Regards!
Yeah, NEMA 23s for the MPCNC is not a good combination for a variety of reasons; weight, heat, torque, balance, etc. When I first looked at building the MPCNC I also thought of trying to use the 23s I had here but quickly realized that was not smart. The 17s are more than strong enough.
As far as driver boards and wiring up things there are options. Buying Ryan’s kit would be the most straight forward way to go but, if you want to go in a different direction there is another very easy driver board set up.
The TB6560 board is really simple to use. Just double up your X and Y axis and run them to the motors (flip the wiring on one of them so the motors don’t fight each other in opposite directions) and you’re pretty much done. No extra breakout boards to mess with. The downsides are that it uses Mach3 and an old computer with a parallel port. You could get an adapter though (UC100) that converts to a USB and any old laptop will work - this is what I’m doing. The 17s run very happily with the TB6560 board.
I do want to eventually play around with the Ramps set up, but for now this is flying my MPCNC really well.
Here’s a vid of the machine using the TB6560 board:
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=jZNNK5Rsdzw
I’m not using NEMA 23s, I have NEMA 17s
TB6600 I have from another project so I’m using those as drivers
I do know how to wire motors, how to wire signal inputs from RAMPS to TB6600 is a bit more puzzling since you can wire it with common ground but also with common +5V
I’ve found both solutions on the net but no explanations and which is actually correct.
I may be wrong, but I think you just want to run the outputs from the RAMPs to the positive inputs. I believe the + and - inputs on the driver are for if your controller uses an active high or an active low on the outputs.
This 23s and TB6600 combo could be a good candidate for a drop table. Build a motorized drop table with four 23s with 4 leadscrews in a 2S2P configuration and rewire the Z to this thing. Then top if off with a short build with essentially no Z. The 23s should be plenty strong to move a wooden table.
Imagine being able to print a life-sized female mannequin with this setup… 