I'd really like you to do a video on Jerk settings. What are they, what do they accomplish and how to tune the. I really appreciate your basic info videos as they have given me the information I could not find elsewhere. Thank you for all your efforts.
This is a good explanation, but it should be coupled with a bit of practical demonstration. For instance, you talk about measuring the reference voltage on the driver, but how do you go about doing that? How do you, personally, check to see if your motors are getting too hot?
ya I didnt really understand any of that with what he mentioned. This seemed like it was more targeted to people who already knew that basic step. It will help me later but not at this time.
You can measure the voltage by using two alligator clips, one on the chassis of the driver board(think usb port metal part) and the other on the metal part of the screwdriver you're using to turn the potentiometer. The other ends of the clips go to a multimeter. You may want to use a non-coated tipped screwdriver for this tho.
Hi Tom, I have just recently just discovered your videos and really like the information you provide. In this video you have provided a very good introduction on how stepper motors work. I haven’t searched all that much but so far have not come across any information about how the motor current waveform is affected by motor winding resistance, winding inductance, step rate (shaft rotation speed) and supply voltage. This may be too much information and maybe everyone already knows this, but here goes. A simplified model of a DC motor can be thought of as a resistor, inductor and a speed dependant voltage generator all in series. This may be inaccurate in several respects but will provide a helpful way to think about what is happening in the motor. - motor winding resistance limits the current for a given supply voltage. The winding resistance will increase with increased motor temperature. - Motor winding inductance limits the dynamic current or how fast the current can rise and decay. -The speed dependant voltage generator, generates a voltage or BEMF(back electro motive force) that opposes the applied voltage. This voltage has a more or less linear relationship to the shaft speed of the motor. -Supply voltage provides the force to drive the current through the motor windings. I am ignoring the micro-step drive as most all modern drivers do a pretty good job. For a given motor size: a motor with low resistance windings will have low inductance and generate smaller BEMF for a given shaft speed but will need to have larger drive current. While a motor with higher resistance windings will have higher inductance and generate a larger BEMF for a given shaft speed and will need less drive current for the same torque. To drive your application you need to choose the right size motor to provide the required torque, and given your maximum step rate you need to choose the proper combination of motor winding resistance and supply voltage. At slow step rates the motor is generating very little BEMF so there is usually plenty of supply voltage to drive the current through the winding resistance also the current waveform is not changing very fast so inductance has not much affect. As the step rate increases more BEMF is generated which opposes the supply voltage which is like turning down the supply voltage. As the step rates gets higher you have more BEMF and the inductance starts limiting how fast the current can change in the windings. With the result that a system that has plenty of holding torque can rapidly run out of torque as the step rate increases. After all of the above, one of the common problems I see is the motor current waveform becoming inductance limited at high step rates (which can be surprisingly low) because either the motor resistance/inductance is too high and or the supply voltage is too low. When this happens the motor torque decreases as the current waveform amplitude decreases and distorts with increase in step rate. I work with stepper motors at work and use a set of tektronix current probes and digital oscilloscope to visualize motor current waveforms (I am sure that someone can or has already come up with a cheaper way of doing this). For a well designed micro-step stepper drive (correct combination of winding resistance and supply voltage) the current waveform should be a nice sinusoidal waveform at all step rates. For the systems that I work with 12V is almost always too low, 24V can sometimes be made to work but usually we use a 48V supply voltage. Finally, a stepper motor is designed to operate at a specified current and is typically intended to be mounted to metal to help keep it cool. A stepper motor can be overdriven to get more torque but this also generates more heat. Even when operated at specified current a stepper motor can get hot. Sorry about the very long comment.
NO music while you are talking as its very distracting ,your videos are very informative ,clear to understand and follow . There are many great videos on youtube that would help ppl a LOT but its just so hard to to keep focused on whats going on .Thanks for all your great vids it's no surprise you are getting lots of new subs .
This video fixed my extrusion problems. My extruder stepper was set to the default 1.4A He was skipping steps all over the place, now, at 2.9A, It achieves a respectable maximum flow rate of 12mm³/s our of my E3D lite6. 2.9A sounds like a lot, but it stays cool to the touch thanks to a fan directly faced towards it.
The properties that limit current in a motor are: winding resistance, winding inductance, back electromotive force and load. To increase the current, you can increase the voltage but it is ultimately the torque required by the load that controls the current. Printer nozzle temperature may be critical for the adherence of each printed layer but the stability of the layers is dependant on the cooling of the layer just put down. Waviness in the printed track is usually caused by oscillations of the gantry and may be reduced by mechanical bracing.
i am not 3d printing but i am using a pot (potentiometer) to measure voltage and to use that as a measurement system using arduino. Stepper motors are so cool thanks for the video!
Tom, i gotta say your guides are awesome. keep up the excellent work. I think I am having this exact issue right how and between this video and a forum post confirming the topic, I think going through the experimentation process you discussed will help me fix my printer. Thanks!!
Tom, do you have a way of figuring when your stepper drivers are near thermal shutdown? All I can think to do is stick a finger on the driver's heat sink and see if it's getting hot yet.
I printed G2 pulleys for my dual extruder once a long time ago.. the whole frame (and table it was sitting on) shook violently when it was doing perimeters, but it didn't skip any steps as far as i can tell.
There really is not many stepper drivers used in 3D printing, so finding the right reference voltage for a particular driver is quite easy. I feel I have much more control if I know how much current I'm at. The small pots seem to have specific points where they are smooth and suddenly the don't work (Checking with the multimeter that I'm at a point where the ref voltage don't fluctuate, helps a lot). Anyway, I start low and increase reference voltage until my steppers move, then a little bit more. If I discover missed steps I increase it a little more. Running with as little current as possible will keep the noise from the steppers to a minimum.
Hello , I needed to know if you as manufacturers of electric stepper motors, what materials in your sheets do you use? are: Do you laminate silicon steel sheets? (Yes: 5Fe)? other sheet metal materials? silicon sheet steel? SID-ELE1? And I don't know what thickness maybe? Thank you so much
Tom I have a davinci printer that I am changing the electronics to arduino mega/ramps 1.4 my question is, my stepper motors do not have the typical blue, red, yellow, black wires coming out of the motors. How can I tell the proper way to hook it to the ramps board? Do the stepper motors have a positive and negative? Also, will a 10k thermister work for the heat bed? I am trying to make everything work with marlin. Thanks for the amazing videos.
Good guide, i had a issue with my extruder motor, with is a special motor i had slundering about. It seemed the stepper driver always went into fail mode after a while, no clue why. but the only way i can make it work is to overamp my motor for some reason. Its a 0.95 amp rated motor and i am running it on 2 amps with active cooling to prevent the filament from melting, but this way is the only way i get it to run stable for longer prints. Very strange, but it seems to work for now.
It would be nice if you made a video about picking a Stepper Motor for a custom made 3d printer, and if possible a complete hardware guide with vairious perspectives
Hello Tom, appreciate your vidoes a lot. I'm bit confused about using a hybrid stepper motor with A4988.Behavior of the motor is more confusing when powered.Would you mind to help me out.
Thanks for the excellent video! I'm thinking about DC and brushless DC motors with quadrature encoders. I have spent many years working in motion control and have always opted against stepper motors when the required motion wasn't simple and precisely known at equipment design time. This is because stepper motors always resonate unless you restrict their acceleration and speed to values that limit how they can and cannot move. In general, this forces you to work around speeds and accelerations, often in the middle of the operating range, that cause resonance and lost steps. For the reasons you describe, a 3D printer is the perfect example of an application where stepper resonance is highly problematic. It's kind of like a car maker building a car where the wheels fall off if you're turning right at 14 miles per hour. The guy in the showroom can say "just don't go 14 miles per hour if you need to turn right", but that would be... idiotic. DC and brushless DC motors with quadrature encoders perform better, don't have resonance problems and provide precise instantaneous real-time position feedback. Why isn't the maker community using DC or brushless DC motors with quadrature encoders in these applications? It's not difficult to use them.
Hello Tom, first of all thx for the nice videos you make ... love them. I am building a printer and have the following problem. I have a ramps board and when i turn on the x on the lcd the x stepper motor works, but when i turn on the y on the lcd the y stepper motor does not work but the x stepper turns .... so x controls x but y controls x to ..... what can i do???? help would be appreciated
Hey Thomas, first of all thanks for all the gr8 content that you provide us!!! I Have a JGAurora A5 that is driving me crazy with layer shifting on large gcodes... I think that this could be the case... Strangely enought in a 10hrs print if I pause the print for a few seconds every 1hr of print It all works in the end... Do you think that it might be this stepper adjust? Thanks a lot and best regards from Brazil
Hello Thomas! First of all, let me tell you that i love your videos and i thank you for making those. Secondly i'll only make this comment / request because i care about your channel. The situation is: i changed from 12v psu to 24v. So, i thought "do i need to adjust the VRef accordingly? Let me check Thomas's channel." In this video you mention/recomend to adjust the VRef "more or less" - tune up..tune down.. - well, imo, that sucks. There is science behind the things, and you usually talk with science supporting you statements, (that is why i take you in such consideration). For example, for the drivers i use, in the manual says: "The SD8825 uses a 0.10 ohm current sense resistor so current limit can be computed as follows: Current Limit = VREF x 2 ". Meaning, for a 1.5A stepper, i set VRef to 0.75V. Precise and optimal performance. When i changed to 24V, the value is now 0,34V (half of 0,75). My question is: do i leave it that way, or should it be adjusted? If yes, by how much? (i have searched a lot and don't find a direct answer to this) Keep up the good job, tks o/
Great video Thomas. Can you comment some more about stepper motor current causing ripple artifacts? I've seen that in some of my printers, and other people in the Type A Machines forum have seen that. It's really annoying, when one printer does it and another identical machine does not do it. Is it basically the stepper motor acting like a small resonating spring when the current is not ideal?
Tom - i checked stepper driver has voltage (extruder) but doesnt power motor on my ender 3, the cables test out as working, when i swap out the xyz, the extruder motor works - what is the next test ?
Tom, you do provide great info, and I thank you for that! I wanted to suggest... Could you please talk about the different stepper motors too. Like for example the 6 wire motors? I had a heck of a time with that. They also seemed somewhat less accurate or it's a setting I've missed on my 3D printer.
+Thomas Sanladerer Talking about the different Nema motors & flavors of them will be very educational ;)! I would of never known you were German! For a long time I thought you were Australian until I came across a video where you said where you live. I look forward to that DIY series! Cheers
I'm using a Smoothieboard with external drivers capable of 4.2a and my steppers only needs 2.8a. Since it uses dips to change the output, I can only select 2.5a or 3a (among others), so what would you recommend since there is no real "tuning"?
Thomas, is there any real difference in reliability between Chinese consumer grade NEMA 17 motors? I'm looking at building a custom Prusa i3 style printer, and i'm debating whether to part out my Wanhao i3 Plus for the PSU, and motors. It has Moons, are these any better, surely more expensive? Tighter windings? It works fine, but I bought it cheap as an open box return.
Hi Tom, thanks for another great video. I have a Solidoodle 3 with a Printrboard that I will replace with the 5xc Smoothieboard (thanks to your video) and will mod with the E3D Chimera. What is the best stepper motor to buy for the extruders?
Hi Tom ! Great video ! I am looking at purchasing steppers that come with drivers ? How would I connect these drivers with motors to say for instance the smoothie board ? Thanks dude.
Thanks Tom, great video. I have a question related to the firmware. I have a printer that uses a Gen6 dirver board and want to know which are the actual firmware settings it has loaded, so that I can then do some adjustments and re load it. Thanks a lot.
Hey Tom, Im using the DRV stepper drivers and i tuned the voltages to have 0.9V and 1.1V on the Extruder, my stepper motors make a crazy high pitch noise now that i changed from the A4988 ones.. Any idea on how i can fix this? Thanks.
Thanks great video! :) What if I can't go beyond 0,5A because in that case I think the relay in my psu (24v,10A) reacts and shots down the system before it turned on. Could a bigger psu maybe help (36v, 10a)? I am unfortunately not an electrical engineer.
my friend ! When are you going to make a video comparing the motor drivers of your printers ? You have to cover: ease to program, accuracy, noise, jumping steps, smaller steps of the microstepping, price, pros and cons in general...
I am testing my stepper motors and when I have the z-axis at around 2500, the stepper motors just lock up. I don't know why this is happening because when I lower it all the way down to like 175 in the steps per unit setting it unlocks and both steppers move freely. Could you just explain to me why this is happening because I don't know why.
So, if I want to replace the stepper motors used by my CR-10s with a non made in China one that will have a high degree of precision and strength... what could be the brand and model?
Hi Tom, I'm currently working out, what hardware a homemade printer with a big printvolume (50x50x50cm) and a heavy extruder (ie e3d's kraken with one direct drive) will need. Because I don't mind spending a bit more for motors and boards I'm looking towards NEMA 23 steppers with around 100Ncm holding torque. Those steppers usually require around 3A each, while a DRV8825 is only rated for 2,2A. I'd use an azteeg x3 pro as board and don't know if it would handle 3A stepper drivers. Can I connect the control pins of the drivers to the controller board and use a seperate power source for the drivers? If i look for alternative drivers should they be capable of outputting more amps then the motors reqire ? ie 3A motors powered by a 4A driver, which is connected to the controller board and a seperated PSU, would that work ? Please let me know, if you have any recommendations for stepper drivers that can handle such power. -Marius
I did all those assumptions with "the worst case (all steppers go full speed and torque at all time)". I guess I'll go with smaller Nema 23, do you have a recommendation where to get those? I should try to get bipolar steppers, not unipolar right? Thanks for the quick answer, that helps me alot!
***** I found some NEMA23's with around 5V (as you said phase current * phase resistance), which should provide enough power and speed. The SD8825 drivers that come with the azteeg x3 pro can handle up to 2,5A and the motors are rated for max 2,8A with 24-48V so I'd be safe to not damage the motor or stepper (right ?). I'm thinking about using the complete assembly not only as a printer but maybe i could switch it to a 3 axis CNC / engraving machine, that's where high power motors come in handy too. Thanks again for all the information! Will you take a look at the new Taulman3d filaments (910 alloy, 680, Bluprint etc.) or at Colorfabb's XT and their composites? Would be nice to see a growing material comparison (+destruction) as material variety increases daily.
would have been nice if u showed how its done rather than just talk to the camera -.-very difficult to understand (or focus in my case I guess) with a dude looking at u ranting :D
Ranting is a bit harsh. I know nothing about electronics and listened to it with my eyes closed and found it quite easy to follow. Tom is precise and doesn't waste words. He was also talking mainly about concepts; the only practical activity was adjusting a tiny potentiometer, footage of which would have added very little, imho.
hi Tom, ..... i'm new in this 3d print world....i have problem with home position after upgraded my extruder to bowden and change the bracket...(FYI my printer is anet a8), can you suggest me or give me a link to change the home position from firmware?
...I dunno if you're still having this problem, but maybe someone else the same issue will scroll down this far or something, and I just solved this myself a few days ago. Here's a page that describes how to alter the firmware properly: reprap.org/wiki/Configuring_Marlin_Bed_Dimensions You can also fiddle with the printer settings in repetier-host if you want, but manually sending my first few GCode commands helped me get a lot more comfortable with both how to control my printer and how it all works to begin with, so I'd do that, then save it to the firmware instead of the EEPROM once you're satisfied with the final numbers.
What I wouldnt do to just get a video that explains how to set up any main baord, like ramps 1.4, and how to set up the steppers X,Y, and Z axis settings. I mean no one says what 3D printers main boards do what, what is the difference between different brands and manufacturers, how to know if the 3D printer you buy will do the things you want. I want to put Ramps 1.4 on a Ebay crappy Anet A2 printer because I( have no idea what the manibaord that comes with it can and can not do.) But still I have no idea if I can do the settings on the Ramps to make the Anet A2 work and even use the kind of auto level I want to use (Being the servo arm that drops and has the switch on the end that feels the bed) No I do not want to use that proximity sensor. So is there any videos that can explain this?
my tronxy started layer shifting on x axis from time to time i checked belts pulls so on all thats gd so thinking stepper driver volts but not clue what xy2 pro suposter be
it was very informative, but where in the firmware can i change the current of the drivers, i updated my firmware and noticed that my motors are heating now and i dont want to screw up my printer any help? thanks! =)
He explained part of that: providing the stepper drivers with a higher voltage gives them a higher overhead (i.e. the voltage you set is the *maximum* provided to the motors), which does allow for more torque, and yes, speed. But again, like he said, you'll want to watch out for resonance frequencies and overheating. As for the 24v->3v thing, well, that's just kinda how electronics work. Volts x Amps = Watts, so with the same amount of power, you can trade volts for amps (and vice versa), and in situations where you're not dealing with a lot of voltage drop (as you would on the heated bed which has a small amount of resistance over a loooong circuit), you can instead throw more amps at it to, uh... ...wait. Fuck... y'know what? I really don't understand electricity. ._. Somebody help me out here? I wanna say it's like horsepower vs. torque in a car engine, but I know *that's* not a perfect analogy... and the big-pipe/little-pipe water flow analogy isn't much use, here, either. :/ I think the car example is probably good enough, though. If you had a 24v motor with a limited power supply (and a thermal overload limit, as well), you could make it go really fast, but you could stop it with one hand. But if you instead ran a lower voltage through it, you would have enough amperage available to maintain its motion (at a lower speed) so it could properly mangle your weak human flesh when you tried to stop it, like you would expect of a proper industrial machine. In this case, that means being able to stop and start faster while pushing around all the weight of the X and Y carriages on your printer. ...that make any sense?
Technically stepper motors are actually AC motors (and yes, I have driven one off of 60 Hertzs AC with a capacitor to force it to turn the direction I want it to run into - unsurprisingly it wasn't awfully fast, of course stepper motors are obviously capable of spinning as fast as a cordless drill motor, it just requires a fast microcontroller to step it rapidly), so inverters are responsible for that - stepper motor inverters are electronically much more complicated especially when you start to involve the micro-stepping into motion actuations, at least Analog Devices' Trinamics and Texas Instruments are one of a few companies that offer all in one stepper motor drivers and occasionally separate gate drivers for custom stepper motor inverters (ie. particularly to drive a huge and expensive stepper motor used in certain industrial CNC equipments as voltage requirements are dramatically different between 3D printer and that expensive machine). The obvious advantage of the stepper motors in the 3D printer is that you can digitally control them with a cheap microcontroller, or expensive one if you want to go big or go home on 3D printer hardware.
My printer just randomly stops printing after 2 hours. It just stops and it doesn't home or anything. It just stops. I know its not the gcode or stl file error because It still happened when I had it connected to my computer. Is it possible that the print stops because the stepper motors are getting too hot?
@@dalefischer4885 I'm a bit late but.... is it possible that your computer is going to sleep during the print? Ive noticed that my printer reboots when I connect/disconnect the usb from the computer, likely due to transitioning from pulling 5 volts from the usb cable to pulling it from the built in power supply and vice versa. Some computers will shut down usb power when sleeping, this could cause your printer to reboot even if it was printing from the sd card, simply because it was plugged into the computer.
Someone has suggested that not enough current going through a Z axis motor(s) could affect the accuracy of the printed height. Since that's my current issue, would you recommend playing with the current or would you troubleshoot elsewhere first? (Running out of ideas..) Do you, or someone you might know, offer a troubleshooting service? Amazing videos by the way!! :)
increasing the supply voltage to the stepper drivers, will decrease the charge time of the motor coils. giving you higher speed. but with most of these machines that's only really valuable for the z-drives. and then only for fast movies. like homing and unloading.
Bitte, bitte keine Musik! Endlich mal Videos, die ohne so etwas auskommen - bleib bitte dabei :-) Ansonsten: weiter so - ich habe schon viel gelernt und unser Drucker ist bereits im Bau.
Ok my driver is acting up I even changed the driver board with a spare I have in Ext 2 still the same problem with the Stepper I think my motor might be bad is there a way to check my motor it extrudes fine when I give it a Manual command but screws up when the Gcode is running it.... any Idea why this would happen???
A picture paints a thousand words. I expected a video on how to fix a 'disabled stopper'. Sorry, didn't understand a word of what you said. As in good writing, 'show, don't tell.'
I hate theory without practical! Atleast show us how to adjust man. I cant gain any knowledge from this YT channel, yet it always pops up! Dang it! C Yaa..
auditory people will love this video, but visual people clicked off within the first 3 mins. Always back up talk with visuals and practical walk through. good explanations though.
You need to change the title of this video. The "and how to adjust their drivers" part was totally missing. "You need to change, this, raise that, lower that"......yeah, but HOW??? Thumbs down!
Found this video while trying to find out how to reduce the amps on my extruder. watched the wholer hting and thanks to no practical demonstration I still have no idea how this is done. Useless video
Awww look at little Tommy
I'd really like you to do a video on Jerk settings. What are they, what do they accomplish and how to tune the. I really appreciate your basic info videos as they have given me the information I could not find elsewhere. Thank you for all your efforts.
This is a good explanation, but it should be coupled with a bit of practical demonstration. For instance, you talk about measuring the reference voltage on the driver, but how do you go about doing that? How do you, personally, check to see if your motors are getting too hot?
Ya, kept waiting for that, "Here I'll show you" moment.
ya I didnt really understand any of that with what he mentioned. This seemed like it was more targeted to people who already knew that basic step. It will help me later but not at this time.
You hold or touch the motor tightly when the heat is too much that you can’t hold or touch it for a number of seconds it then it too hot 🥵
You can measure the voltage by using two alligator clips, one on the chassis of the driver board(think usb port metal part) and the other on the metal part of the screwdriver you're using to turn the potentiometer. The other ends of the clips go to a multimeter. You may want to use a non-coated tipped screwdriver for this tho.
Hi Tom,
I have just recently just discovered your videos and really like the information you provide. In this video you have provided a very good introduction on how stepper motors work. I haven’t searched all that much but so far have not come across any information about how the motor current waveform is affected by motor winding resistance, winding inductance, step rate (shaft rotation speed) and supply voltage.
This may be too much information and maybe everyone already knows this, but here goes.
A simplified model of a DC motor can be thought of as a resistor, inductor and a speed dependant voltage generator all in series. This may be inaccurate in several respects but will provide a helpful way to think about what is happening in the motor.
- motor winding resistance limits the current for a given supply voltage. The winding resistance will increase with increased motor temperature.
- Motor winding inductance limits the dynamic current or how fast the current can rise and decay.
-The speed dependant voltage generator, generates a voltage or BEMF(back electro motive force) that opposes the applied voltage. This voltage has a more or less linear relationship to the shaft speed of the motor.
-Supply voltage provides the force to drive the current through the motor windings.
I am ignoring the micro-step drive as most all modern drivers do a pretty good job.
For a given motor size: a motor with low resistance windings will have low inductance and generate smaller BEMF for a given shaft speed but will need to have larger drive current. While a motor with higher resistance windings will have higher inductance and generate a larger BEMF for a given shaft speed and will need less drive current for the same torque.
To drive your application you need to choose the right size motor to provide the required torque, and given your maximum step rate you need to choose the proper combination of motor winding resistance and supply voltage.
At slow step rates the motor is generating very little BEMF so there is usually plenty of supply voltage to drive the current through the winding resistance also the current waveform is not changing very fast so inductance has not much affect. As the step rate increases more BEMF is generated which opposes the supply voltage which is like turning down the supply voltage. As the step rates gets higher you have more BEMF and the inductance starts limiting how fast the current can change in the windings. With the result that a system that has plenty of holding torque can rapidly run out of torque as the step rate increases.
After all of the above, one of the common problems I see is the motor current waveform becoming inductance limited at high step rates (which can be surprisingly low) because either the motor resistance/inductance is too high and or the supply voltage is too low. When this happens the motor torque decreases as the current waveform amplitude decreases and distorts with increase in step rate.
I work with stepper motors at work and use a set of tektronix current probes and digital oscilloscope to visualize motor current waveforms (I am sure that someone can or has already come up with a cheaper way of doing this). For a well designed micro-step stepper drive (correct combination of winding resistance and supply voltage) the current waveform should be a nice sinusoidal waveform at all step rates. For the systems that I work with 12V is almost always too low, 24V can sometimes be made to work but usually we use a 48V supply voltage.
Finally, a stepper motor is designed to operate at a specified current and is typically intended to be mounted to metal to help keep it cool. A stepper motor can be overdriven to get more torque but this also generates more heat. Even when operated at specified current a stepper motor can get hot.
Sorry about the very long comment.
Thank you! I am gathering information all around in order to build a 3 d printer, and so far I could't find any better tutorials than yours!
NO music while you are talking as its very distracting ,your videos are very informative ,clear to understand and follow . There are many great videos on youtube that would help ppl a LOT but its just so hard to to keep focused on whats going on .Thanks for all your great vids it's no surprise you are getting lots of new subs .
This video fixed my extrusion problems.
My extruder stepper was set to the default 1.4A
He was skipping steps all over the place, now, at 2.9A,
It achieves a respectable maximum flow rate of 12mm³/s our of my E3D lite6.
2.9A sounds like a lot, but it stays cool to the touch thanks to a fan directly faced towards it.
there's so much common sense being discussed in this video it feels so good on my boooddyyyy
Thank you Tom, I have enjoyed learning about 3D from your efforts. Keep adding more. We don't know what we don't know!
The properties that limit current in a motor are: winding resistance, winding inductance, back electromotive force and load. To increase the current, you can increase the voltage but it is ultimately the torque required by the load that controls the current.
Printer nozzle temperature may be critical for the adherence of each printed layer but the stability of the layers is dependant on the cooling of the layer just put down. Waviness in the printed track is usually caused by oscillations of the gantry and may be reduced by mechanical bracing.
i am not 3d printing but i am using a pot (potentiometer) to measure voltage and to use that as a measurement system using arduino. Stepper motors are so cool thanks for the video!
Tom, i gotta say your guides are awesome. keep up the excellent work. I think I am having this exact issue right how and between this video and a forum post confirming the topic, I think going through the experimentation process you discussed will help me fix my printer.
Thanks!!
Tom, do you have a way of figuring when your stepper drivers are near thermal shutdown? All I can think to do is stick a finger on the driver's heat sink and see if it's getting hot yet.
man, thomas look younger in this video
I printed G2 pulleys for my dual extruder once a long time ago.. the whole frame (and table it was sitting on) shook violently when it was doing perimeters, but it didn't skip any steps as far as i can tell.
I knew this guy was screwing around with me c cars lol. Thanks for all the info Tom! One of the best 3D channels out there.
There really is not many stepper drivers used in 3D printing, so finding the right reference voltage for a particular driver is quite easy.
I feel I have much more control if I know how much current I'm at. The small pots seem to have specific points where they are smooth and suddenly the don't work (Checking with the multimeter that I'm at a point where the ref voltage don't fluctuate, helps a lot). Anyway, I start low and increase reference voltage until my steppers move, then a little bit more. If I discover missed steps I increase it a little more. Running with as little current as possible will keep the noise from the steppers to a minimum.
I love the 'to increase efficiency' comment :)
Hello , I needed to know if you as manufacturers of electric stepper motors, what materials in your sheets do you use? are:
Do you laminate silicon steel sheets? (Yes: 5Fe)?
other sheet metal materials?
silicon sheet steel?
SID-ELE1?
And I don't know what thickness maybe?
Thank you so much
Thanks for the video!, can you update the description and add the test file? I can't find it, thanks!
Tom I have a davinci printer that I am changing the electronics to arduino mega/ramps 1.4 my question is, my stepper motors do not have the typical blue, red, yellow, black wires coming out of the motors. How can I tell the proper way to hook it to the ramps board? Do the stepper motors have a positive and negative? Also, will a 10k thermister work for the heat bed? I am trying to make everything work with marlin.
Thanks for the amazing videos.
Good guide, i had a issue with my extruder motor, with is a special motor i had slundering about.
It seemed the stepper driver always went into fail mode after a while, no clue why. but the only way i can make it work is to overamp my motor for some reason.
Its a 0.95 amp rated motor and i am running it on 2 amps with active cooling to prevent the filament from melting, but this way is the only way i get it to run stable for longer prints.
Very strange, but it seems to work for now.
You make the best videos man, much appreciated!
It would be nice if you made a video about picking a Stepper Motor for a custom made 3d printer, and if possible a complete hardware guide with vairious perspectives
What tools are you using to measure the temps? Fingertips? Thermometers? Fancy cameras?
Hello Tom, appreciate your vidoes a lot. I'm bit confused about using a hybrid stepper motor with A4988.Behavior of the motor is more confusing when powered.Would you mind to help me out.
Great video and explanation. I have heard that adding an encoder can do away with all the mistep. Is this possible?
Thanks for the excellent video! I'm thinking about DC and brushless DC motors with quadrature encoders.
I have spent many years working in motion control and have always opted against stepper motors when the required motion wasn't simple and precisely known at equipment design time. This is because stepper motors always resonate unless you restrict their acceleration and speed to values that limit how they can and cannot move. In general, this forces you to work around speeds and accelerations, often in the middle of the operating range, that cause resonance and lost steps. For the reasons you describe, a 3D printer is the perfect example of an application where stepper resonance is highly problematic. It's kind of like a car maker building a car where the wheels fall off if you're turning right at 14 miles per hour. The guy in the showroom can say "just don't go 14 miles per hour if you need to turn right", but that would be... idiotic.
DC and brushless DC motors with quadrature encoders perform better, don't have resonance problems and provide precise instantaneous real-time position feedback. Why isn't the maker community using DC or brushless DC motors with quadrature encoders in these applications? It's not difficult to use them.
Hello Tom, first of all thx for the nice videos you make ... love them.
I am building a printer and have the following problem.
I have a ramps board and when i turn on the x on the lcd the x stepper motor works, but when i turn on the y on the lcd the y stepper motor does not work but the x stepper turns ....
so x controls x but y controls x to ..... what can i do????
help would be appreciated
Hey Thomas, first of all thanks for all the gr8 content that you provide us!!!
I Have a JGAurora A5 that is driving me crazy with layer shifting on large gcodes... I think that this could be the case...
Strangely enought in a 10hrs print if I pause the print for a few seconds every 1hr of print It all works in the end...
Do you think that it might be this stepper adjust?
Thanks a lot and best regards from Brazil
Aw look at tiny Tom
Hello Thomas! First of all, let me tell you that i love your videos and i thank you for making those.
Secondly i'll only make this comment / request because i care about your channel.
The situation is: i changed from 12v psu to 24v. So, i thought "do i need to adjust the VRef accordingly? Let me check Thomas's channel."
In this video you mention/recomend to adjust the VRef "more or less" - tune up..tune down.. - well, imo, that sucks. There is science behind the things, and you usually talk with science supporting you statements, (that is why i take you in such consideration).
For example, for the drivers i use, in the manual says: "The SD8825 uses a 0.10 ohm current sense resistor so current limit can be computed as follows: Current Limit = VREF x 2 ". Meaning, for a 1.5A stepper, i set VRef to 0.75V. Precise and optimal performance.
When i changed to 24V, the value is now 0,34V (half of 0,75).
My question is: do i leave it that way, or should it be adjusted? If yes, by how much?
(i have searched a lot and don't find a direct answer to this)
Keep up the good job, tks o/
Any video on how to do the change? What tools are needed? I have a Robo R1 with a stuck stepper motor and can't find help
Awesome guide, thank you for putting these out! You earned a sub!
Great video Thomas. Can you comment some more about stepper motor current causing ripple artifacts? I've seen that in some of my printers, and other people in the Type A Machines forum have seen that. It's really annoying, when one printer does it and another identical machine does not do it. Is it basically the stepper motor acting like a small resonating spring when the current is not ideal?
Tom - i checked stepper driver has voltage (extruder) but doesnt power motor on my ender 3, the cables test out as working, when i swap out the xyz, the extruder motor works - what is the next test ?
Tom, you do provide great info, and I thank you for that! I wanted to suggest... Could you please talk about the different stepper motors too. Like for example the 6 wire motors? I had a heck of a time with that. They also seemed somewhat less accurate or it's a setting I've missed on my 3D printer.
+Thomas Sanladerer Talking about the different Nema motors & flavors of them will be very educational ;)! I would of never known you were German! For a long time I thought you were Australian until I came across a video where you said where you live. I look forward to that DIY series! Cheers
+Thomas Sanladerer What happened to the stepper video?
I'm using a Smoothieboard with external drivers capable of 4.2a and my steppers only needs 2.8a. Since it uses dips to change the output, I can only select 2.5a or 3a (among others), so what would you recommend since there is no real "tuning"?
If the stepper is skipping steps occasionally caused by mechanical resistance, will it damage any hardware or the motor?
Thomas, is there any real difference in reliability between Chinese consumer grade NEMA 17 motors? I'm looking at building a custom Prusa i3 style printer, and i'm debating whether to part out my Wanhao i3 Plus for the PSU, and motors. It has Moons, are these any better, surely more expensive? Tighter windings? It works fine, but I bought it cheap as an open box return.
You're videos are awesome.
See, you know what I meant.
Hi Tom, thanks for another great video. I have a Solidoodle 3 with a Printrboard that I will replace with the 5xc Smoothieboard (thanks to your video) and will mod with the E3D Chimera. What is the best stepper motor to buy for the extruders?
Over a large axis 2000mm would it be worth adding a feedback system to increase accuracy?
Hi Tom ! Great video ! I am looking at purchasing steppers that come with drivers ? How would I connect these drivers with motors to say for instance the smoothie board ? Thanks dude.
I only have a metal screwdriver. Is there anything wrong with wrapping electrical tape around the handle and making sure I only touch the pot?
Thanks Tom, great video.
I have a question related to the firmware. I have a printer that uses a Gen6 dirver board and want to know which are the actual firmware settings it has loaded, so that I can then do some adjustments and re load it.
Thanks a lot.
Hey Tom, Im using the DRV stepper drivers and i tuned the voltages to have 0.9V and 1.1V on the Extruder, my stepper motors make a crazy high pitch noise now that i changed from the A4988 ones.. Any idea on how i can fix this? Thanks.
Thanks great video! :) What if I can't go beyond 0,5A because in that case I think the relay in my psu (24v,10A) reacts and shots down the system before it turned on. Could a bigger psu maybe help (36v, 10a)? I am unfortunately not an electrical engineer.
my friend ! When are you going to make a video comparing the motor drivers of your printers ? You have to cover: ease to program, accuracy, noise, jumping steps, smaller steps of the microstepping, price, pros and cons in general...
I am testing my stepper motors and when I have the z-axis at around 2500, the stepper motors just lock up. I don't know why this is happening because when I lower it all the way down to like 175 in the steps per unit setting it unlocks and both steppers move freely. Could you just explain to me why this is happening because I don't know why.
i am wanting to build of print of like 2ftx2ftx2ft, will all stepper motors travel this much or is there limits
Tom,
Thank you - another question answered.
I know I'm a bit late to the party, but is there a second part to this video?
I didn't understand a thing!
So, if I want to replace the stepper motors used by my CR-10s with a non made in China one that will have a high degree of precision and strength... what could be the brand and model?
i can't find a current video to this... can someone tell me if this is still the best way to tune?
what can i use to decide which stepper drivers to use?
Keep up the great content, thanks!
Hi Tom,
I'm currently working out, what hardware a homemade printer with a big printvolume (50x50x50cm) and a heavy extruder (ie e3d's kraken with one direct drive) will need. Because I don't mind spending a bit more for motors and boards I'm looking towards NEMA 23 steppers with around 100Ncm holding torque. Those steppers usually require around 3A each, while a DRV8825 is only rated for 2,2A. I'd use an azteeg x3 pro as board and don't know if it would handle 3A stepper drivers. Can I connect the control pins of the drivers to the controller board and use a seperate power source for the drivers? If i look for alternative drivers should they be capable of outputting more amps then the motors reqire ? ie 3A motors powered by a 4A driver, which is connected to the controller board and a seperated PSU, would that work ? Please let me know, if you have any recommendations for stepper drivers that can handle such power.
-Marius
I did all those assumptions with "the worst case (all steppers go full speed and torque at all time)". I guess I'll go with smaller Nema 23, do you have a recommendation where to get those? I should try to get bipolar steppers, not unipolar right? Thanks for the quick answer, that helps me alot!
***** I found some NEMA23's with around 5V (as you said phase current * phase resistance), which should provide enough power and speed. The SD8825 drivers that come with the azteeg x3 pro can handle up to 2,5A and the motors are rated for max 2,8A with 24-48V so I'd be safe to not damage the motor or stepper (right ?). I'm thinking about using the complete assembly not only as a printer but maybe i could switch it to a 3 axis CNC / engraving machine, that's where high power motors come in handy too. Thanks again for all the information!
Will you take a look at the new Taulman3d filaments (910 alloy, 680, Bluprint etc.) or at Colorfabb's XT and their composites? Would be nice to see a growing material comparison (+destruction) as material variety increases daily.
would have been nice if u showed how its done rather than just talk to the camera -.-very difficult to understand (or focus in my case I guess) with a dude looking at u ranting :D
totally agree
Jim Jose Pat Towson
Ranting is a bit harsh. I know nothing about electronics and listened to it with my eyes closed and found it quite easy to follow. Tom is precise and doesn't waste words. He was also talking mainly about concepts; the only practical activity was adjusting a tiny potentiometer, footage of which would have added very little, imho.
hey tom can you recommend some good stepper motors to 3d printing
hi Tom, ..... i'm new in this 3d print world....i have problem with home position after upgraded my extruder to bowden and change the bracket...(FYI my printer is anet a8), can you suggest me or give me a link to change the home position from firmware?
...I dunno if you're still having this problem, but maybe someone else the same issue will scroll down this far or something, and I just solved this myself a few days ago.
Here's a page that describes how to alter the firmware properly: reprap.org/wiki/Configuring_Marlin_Bed_Dimensions
You can also fiddle with the printer settings in repetier-host if you want, but manually sending my first few GCode commands helped me get a lot more comfortable with both how to control my printer and how it all works to begin with, so I'd do that, then save it to the firmware instead of the EEPROM once you're satisfied with the final numbers.
What I wouldnt do to just get a video that explains how to set up any main baord, like ramps 1.4, and how to set up the steppers X,Y, and Z axis settings.
I mean no one says what 3D printers main boards do what, what is the difference between different brands and manufacturers, how to know if the 3D printer you buy will do the things you want.
I want to put Ramps 1.4 on a Ebay crappy Anet A2 printer because I( have no idea what the manibaord that comes with it can and can not do.) But still I have no idea if I can do the settings on the Ramps to make the Anet A2 work and even use the kind of auto level I want to use (Being the servo arm that drops and has the switch on the end that feels the bed) No I do not want to use that proximity sensor.
So is there any videos that can explain this?
my tronxy started layer shifting on x axis from time to time i checked belts pulls so on all thats gd so thinking stepper driver volts but not clue what xy2 pro suposter be
it was very informative, but where in the firmware can i change the current of the drivers, i updated my firmware and noticed that my motors are heating now and i dont want to screw up my printer any help?
thanks! =)
hi-
Hi. So what does a higher voltage do for the steppermotors? gives more torque? more speed? Why are we running a 3v rated stepper on 24v?
He explained part of that: providing the stepper drivers with a higher voltage gives them a higher overhead (i.e. the voltage you set is the *maximum* provided to the motors), which does allow for more torque, and yes, speed. But again, like he said, you'll want to watch out for resonance frequencies and overheating.
As for the 24v->3v thing, well, that's just kinda how electronics work. Volts x Amps = Watts, so with the same amount of power, you can trade volts for amps (and vice versa), and in situations where you're not dealing with a lot of voltage drop (as you would on the heated bed which has a small amount of resistance over a loooong circuit), you can instead throw more amps at it to, uh... ...wait. Fuck... y'know what? I really don't understand electricity. ._.
Somebody help me out here? I wanna say it's like horsepower vs. torque in a car engine, but I know *that's* not a perfect analogy... and the big-pipe/little-pipe water flow analogy isn't much use, here, either. :/
I think the car example is probably good enough, though. If you had a 24v motor with a limited power supply (and a thermal overload limit, as well), you could make it go really fast, but you could stop it with one hand. But if you instead ran a lower voltage through it, you would have enough amperage available to maintain its motion (at a lower speed) so it could properly mangle your weak human flesh when you tried to stop it, like you would expect of a proper industrial machine. In this case, that means being able to stop and start faster while pushing around all the weight of the X and Y carriages on your printer.
...that make any sense?
can a 6 wired stepper motor used instead of a 4 wired stepper motor using the same pololu motor drivers ?
Hi, great video, but nothing related to stepper resolution
The potentiometer of my driver has been turned too far I think, it spins all around. What to do ?
Hi to what make a feeder extruder don't push the filament to the nozzle
Technically stepper motors are actually AC motors (and yes, I have driven one off of 60 Hertzs AC with a capacitor to force it to turn the direction I want it to run into - unsurprisingly it wasn't awfully fast, of course stepper motors are obviously capable of spinning as fast as a cordless drill motor, it just requires a fast microcontroller to step it rapidly), so inverters are responsible for that - stepper motor inverters are electronically much more complicated especially when you start to involve the micro-stepping into motion actuations, at least Analog Devices' Trinamics and Texas Instruments are one of a few companies that offer all in one stepper motor drivers and occasionally separate gate drivers for custom stepper motor inverters (ie. particularly to drive a huge and expensive stepper motor used in certain industrial CNC equipments as voltage requirements are dramatically different between 3D printer and that expensive machine).
The obvious advantage of the stepper motors in the 3D printer is that you can digitally control them with a cheap microcontroller, or expensive one if you want to go big or go home on 3D printer hardware.
My printer just randomly stops printing after 2 hours. It just stops and it doesn't home or anything. It just stops. I know its not the gcode or stl file error because It still happened when I had it connected to my computer. Is it possible that the print stops because the stepper motors are getting too hot?
@@dalefischer4885 I'm a bit late but.... is it possible that your computer is going to sleep during the print? Ive noticed that my printer reboots when I connect/disconnect the usb from the computer, likely due to transitioning from pulling 5 volts from the usb cable to pulling it from the built in power supply and vice versa. Some computers will shut down usb power when sleeping, this could cause your printer to reboot even if it was printing from the sd card, simply because it was plugged into the computer.
@ThomasSandladere Nema what would I set the SPM if used as X axis?
Someone has suggested that not enough current going through a Z axis motor(s) could affect the accuracy of the printed height. Since that's my current issue, would you recommend playing with the current or would you troubleshoot elsewhere first? (Running out of ideas..) Do you, or someone you might know, offer a troubleshooting service? Amazing videos by the way!! :)
increasing the supply voltage to the stepper drivers, will decrease the charge time of the motor coils. giving you higher speed. but with most of these machines that's only really valuable for the z-drives. and then only for fast movies. like homing and unloading.
Bitte, bitte keine Musik!
Endlich mal Videos, die ohne so etwas auskommen - bleib bitte dabei :-)
Ansonsten: weiter so - ich habe schon viel gelernt und unser Drucker ist bereits im Bau.
I have no audio on this one. The advertisment before video had, but this doesnt.
if you need more torque, just use a diesel motor. badum-tsss
Ok my driver is acting up I even changed the driver board with a spare I have in Ext 2 still the same problem with the Stepper I think my motor might be bad is there a way to check my motor it extrudes fine when I give it a Manual command but screws up when the Gcode is running it.... any Idea why this would happen???
I know it would be more work but using graphics will help your video.
How to half step?
hallo tom, sprichst du auch deutsch?
Younger Tom
love it
A picture paints a thousand words. I expected a video on how to fix a 'disabled stopper'. Sorry, didn't understand a word of what you said. As in good writing, 'show, don't tell.'
I hate theory without practical! Atleast show us how to adjust man. I cant gain any knowledge from this YT channel, yet it always pops up! Dang it! C Yaa..
No one cares.
auditory people will love this video, but visual people clicked off within the first 3 mins. Always back up talk with visuals and practical walk through. good explanations though.
No Music
Yay
Nice
You need to change the title of this video. The "and how to adjust their drivers" part was totally missing. "You need to change, this, raise that, lower that"......yeah, but HOW??? Thumbs down!
Sooo... No usefull information here at all... I still have NO IDEA how to hook up my multimeter to even read whats my current voltage or current...
Hideki Shinichi it's variable on steppers. You could measure the vref on your main board
Just talk no example. The problem of most of subscribers is practice not theory
Found this video while trying to find out how to reduce the amps on my extruder. watched the wholer hting and thanks to no practical demonstration I still have no idea how this is done. Useless video
Umm was hopeful but this video left me disappointed
Adios amigo :)
Ich wurde gerne diese videos auf deutsch anschauen