[James Newton]

Thanks for the pictures Pete! You got any /real/ motors to hook it up to? ,o)

[lucas]

I only found your controllers after buying a blue board 6560. I'm not smart but I got it working first time. Thought some proper set up info would be good and found the thread about getting this type of board to work.
.......

Maybe you should offer more options on ebay. '4 Axis Controller' would have got my attention (I never even searched for drivers), the fact that there are 5 boards would have been fine. Especially if you had some info telling me why using separate boards might be better.

Thanks for your input, using the correct keywords is important, I will try to improve this on my next Ebay add.

..... (I turn off non UK results).

Why do you turn off non UK results? There are no taxes or duties within the EU.
You wouldn't have found my stuff even if I was offering something that would have catched your eye because the location is Belgium.
Or do you not have the option to look in the EU? This would mean an add in every EU country....

@ Vegipete:
Have you found some more time to play with it?

[H500]

I just received the flat version of the kit. It's the first time I've seen a design that was not my own. I look forward to assembling and testing it this weekend. I will share my build experience here.

If all goes well, I will be testing it on my SX3 mill on Saturday.

[H500]

The first step was to find the assembly instructions. It can be found here
http://users.skynet.be/ldt/CNC%20ele...pec_descr.html

The website shows 2 version. I was able to identify my board by comparing it to the photos. Clicking the "Special 1.0" link brought me to the assembly instructions.

Initially, I had trouble viewing the page because my browser window was set quite narrow. I thought it was empty except for the links. That was because the content appeared 7 pages down. However, when I made the window slightly wider, everything showed properly.

The most important diagram on the page is the "Connections and Polarized Components Indication" drawing. It shows where the parts are located. It's much easier to locate them using the drawing. The drawing also shows the jumper settings and the connector pinouts.

http://users.skynet.be/ldt/CNC%20ele...onnections.pdf

The assembly instructions (for Ver 1.0) are here
http://users.skynet.be/ldt/CNC%20ele..._assembly.html

[H500]

The instructions were easy to follow. I installed most of the components and bent the leads slightly to prevent them from falling out when the PCB was turned over for soldering.

I clipped each lead after soldering, to get them out of the way.

[H500]

Everything went together quickly. Although 2 high quality smt resistors were supplied with the kit, I wanted to try "run of the mill" ones first. The leads also made it easier to connect a scope probe.

I powered it up to check that the 5v was OK before I installed the thb6064. I did not have the proper connectors or wiring, so I made due with what I had.

I wasn't sure what size of heat sink is required. I will start by using a bent piece of .1" x 3" x 8" aluminum.

[H500]

I powered it up using my 40v supply. The chip can tolerate 50v. It's always a good idea to keep the actual voltage well below the maximum to ensure that the chip will not self destruct due to unexpected voltage spikes.

I adjusted Pot VR1 to get 1.2v at Vref. This should provide a motor current of about 2 amps, close to the rating of the first motor I plan to try.

Everything looked OK, so I powered down and then installed the motor. Never connect or disconnect a motor with the power applied. It's one of the quickest way to kill the driver.

Using the information supplied in the "Connections and Polarized Components Indication" drawing, I set the jumpers for 20% fast decay and 8 microsteps. Note that "ON" means to install the jumper.

On the computer side, I connected the step, dir, power and ground. The enable pin was left unconnected. This keeps the drive enabled all the time.

Note that the computer side of the opto-isolators needs to be powered from another power supply, or 5v power from a USB port. Do not use the 5v from the driver. That would bypass the isolation protection.

Once again, everything looked OK when power was applied. Jogging with Mach worked as expected. I should also note that the driver is dead silent. I don't see that very often.

[lucas]

Just a few questions on your test-setup:

Those resistors, are that regular wirewound types?
No hissing with these and those tiny supply wires... did you try fast decay?
Are you driving directly from the printer port or a BOB?

Looks like I have some (a lot) more work to do on documentation and website,
I underestimated the amount of work on this.

Looking forward to the final "verdict".

[H500]

I believe they are ordinary wire wound.

Resistors | Through Hole Resistors | DigiKey

I used them on an earlier design. The rule is to avoid wire wound, but I compared them to a much more expensive current sensing resistor at one time and found the difference to be small. I am temporarily using 26 ga wire. I will eventually change to shielded wire to reduce the emi.

Note that I am now using .05 ohm chip resistors. It's still silent, but there might be more jitter in the waveform. The minimum current is around 3 amps, but that's OK for my motors.

I had it on fast decay early on. There was no hiss.

I am driving it direct from the printer port. The power is 3v3 rather than 5. The supply is used to power my other drives, so the opto-isolation has been defeated, but it was convenient.

I think you did a good job with the design and documentation. I had no trouble getting it to work and the performance is excellent. It's the first chip based design that I liked. The next step is to try it on my mill.

[lucas]

@H500: It was the intention for you to test and compare this design, but now you are also using this chip beyound it's limit's and datasheet recommendations. (chair)

James (and others) pull the motor wires while powered, a customer did overdrive the current setting on 3 drives untill the chip shuts down, yes it does work: error led on and no smoke or bang at +5 amps on all 3 drives.

I believe they are ordinary wire wound.....
The rule is to avoid wire wound....
I am temporarily using 26 ga wire...
Note that I am now using .05 ohm chip resistors...
It's the first chip based design that I liked....

Me thinks you will like it even more if you use it within specs, 0.05 ohm current sense resistors is 4 times smaller than what the datasheet (0.2 ohm) calls for, only some jitter at low current in this case is beautifull. Some other chips might behave less friendly.

I think you did a good job with the design and documentation. I had no trouble getting it to work and the performance is excellent. It's the first chip based design that I liked. The next step is to try it on my mill.

Thanks for confirming the quality of the chip and design, looking forward to the real world test.

[H500]

I replaced the y-axis driver on my SX3 with the 6064 board. The other axes have DSP drivers based on Microchip's design.

The power supply is 40v. It has 50 and 70v windings, but I'm happy with the speed as it it. The motors run cooler with lower voltages.

The current is set to 3 amps. With the smallish heat sink, the driver can handle up to 4 amps before the chip gets too hot (80c)

The video below shows a simulated engraving operation at 200 IPM. I normally restrict the speeds to 100ipm, but I wanted to push the driver to the limit. The 6064 drive had no trouble keeping up with the more complex DSP boards. The only difference I noticed was that it vibrated more at the resonance speeds.

[James Newton]

Neat video! Thanks for posting that. Just to make sure I understand, when you say "Y Axis" you mean the one that is running left to right in the video? And I would love to know what sort of motor it's running on that axis?

[H500]

It's the axis that moves to and from the column. I'm using keling 280 oz-in motors (kl23h276-30-8b) for all 3 axes. I'm limiting the current to 3 amps for x and y because I don't need the high torque so far. The z is driven at 4.5 amps.

[icekiller]

Ordered 3 pieces on ebay from Luc it arrived quickly and correctly packaged :-) as soon as i'm done i'm going to solder them up and give a review on them

[vegipete]

I was goofing around with the driver and created this video.
[ame=http://youtube.com/watch?v=dn8xW6LgrPc]Musical Stepper - YouTube[/ame]
The G-Code interpreter I've written for the PIC18F14K22 does a nice job of turning G-Code into music.

[James Newton]

I was goofing around with the driver and created this video.
The G-Code interpreter I've written for the PIC18F14K22 does a nice job of turning G-Code into music.

Totally cool! That G-Code interpreter is amazing considering how tiny the PIC is. Going to release it soon?

[paulus.v]

Hi lucas

After reading this thread and the other regarding the THB6064H IC I think that getting your drive kits is the best that I can get for a low budget "hybrid machine" build.

You along with James and others made a great job designing this drives. Big THANK YOU to all who contributed!

One question:
I couldn't find enough information about stepping modes. In one article listed the most common drive modes: wave, full step, half step and microsteping. The stepper that I will buy has "200 steps per rev." The drive you designed has "8 microstep modes 2, 8, 10, 16, 20, 32, 40 and 62". Now the question... the 200 steps per rev. are actually "microsteps" and with this drive I can use at most 62 of them? Or each or this 200 steps per rev. can be divided by 2 to 64 "microsteps"?

[lucas]

Your motor has 200 full steps/rev.

Using microstepping increases the number of steps/rev but most important the smoothness of the motor.

Eg: There will 2000 steps needed for a full revolution if you use 10 microstepping.

8 or 10 microstepping modes are the most used and gives the best results.

[paulus.v]

Your motor has 200 full steps/rev.

Using microstepping increases the number of steps/rev but most important the smoothness of the motor.

Eg: There will 2000 steps needed for a full revolution if you use 10 microstepping.

8 or 10 microstepping modes are the most used and gives the best results.

Thanks for your fast response.

Everything is more clear now. So the drive doesn't need to "know" the number of steps per revolution the stepper has? this is only the software's "problem"...

Now I have to find some good cheap steppers (like keling) in Europe, preferably Germany... and start buying everything.

[paulus.v]

Hi lucas,

After finalising my machine design I calculated that I need more power than the THB6064 can give but I cannot afford better drives at the moment. Now the question is if I buy bigger steppers (5.6A) can I run them with this drives without any damage? Or I need somehow to limit the current? Maybe with independent power supply for each drive with max. 4.5A?