14
votes
Accepted
Do stepper motors require any maintenance?
The stepper motor itself does not. You may want to inspect the motors for debris or dust.
Depending on your configuration you may want to check on parts of your printer that connect to your stepper ...
- 470
13
votes
Accepted
Real life stepper speed
The four main motor speed limits in a 3d printer are:
Firmware step generation frequency limits
Firmware motion planner effects
Loss of torque and precision due to motor coil inductance and back-EMF ...
- 6,536
13
votes
Accepted
Servo vs Stepper
Servos do have several advantages; but, they are more expensive and more difficult to control.
Generally, a servo motor is a DC motor but with an encoder to provide position feedback. A circuit (can ...
- 2,452
12
votes
Is there a way to invert motor direction with G-code instead of Firmware in Marlin
For the X/Y/Z axes, you can use M92 to change the axis steps per unit to a negative value, which causes it to move in the opposite direction. I.e. if normally your ...
- 14.8k
10
votes
Do stepper motors require any maintenance?
No, stepper motors do not require maintenance. They are a brushless kind of motor, so they do not have brushes that need to be replaced.
- 14.8k
9
votes
Why do different drivers change the noise of steppers?
Stepper motors contain two distinct sets of coils. The current in these coils is governed by your stepper motor driver.
To move the motor in either direction, the coils are being driven one after ...
- 1,387
8
votes
Accepted
Full steps mode for Z axis stepper controller
Focussing on the questions at hand:
Is it possible to use full steps?
This depends on your printer board. Many boards use dip switches to select the (micro) stepping mode of the stepper driver. E....
- 34.5k
8
votes
Accepted
What is this stepper motor connector called?
Short answer: It's probably 6 pin JST PH
Long answer:
Without seeing the socket, it's hard to say for sure, however most Nema 17 stepper motors use 6 pin JST PH connectors with 2.0mm pitch on the ...
- 395
7
votes
Accepted
Extruder stepper motor problem, what can be wrong?
Your controller board probably requires calibration.
It sounds like, maybe, the extruder's stepper motor is not receiving sufficient current, to make it turn. Or, somewhat confusingly, maybe the ...
- 6,192
6
votes
Accepted
What are the benefits to using 128X microstepping drivers on the X and Y axis of a FFF printer?
You will likely not see a noticeable improvement by upgrading from a 16x or 32x to a 64x or 128x microstepping driver. Depending on the motors you're driving and the size of the load you could ...
- 1,551
6
votes
Accepted
How to connect a NEMA 17 stepper to RAMPS 1.4?
There are very many combinations that will work. A bipolar stepper has 2 coils. Swapping the coils, or reversing the polarity of a coil, will simply cause the stepper to rotate in the opposite ...
- 14.8k
5
votes
How to keep Z-axis motor from slipping when powered down
The simple way to do this is to use a self-locking screw pitch. Pretty much any single-start thread using a sliding nut cannot be back-driven so the load will not fall. Normal 8x8 trapezoidal thread ...
- 6,536
5
votes
Ultimaker 2 ticking sound coming from feeder
Ultimately, your stepper motor is unsuccessful in driving the filament through the extruder. A couple potential reasons:
extruder temperature isn't high enough. This could either be operator error ...
- 6,284
5
votes
Classifying method of control of 3D printers?
The question is if robots classification terminology the textbook sketches applies to 3D printing?
Servos (closed loop) are used in robots to guarantee position (you don't want to accumulate an error ...
- 34.5k
5
votes
Accepted
Using stepper motors with integrated controllers
Many of the motors that look like stepper motors in laser printers are actually three-phase brush-less DC motors. These look like stepper motors, but are intended to be used differently, controlled ...
- 4,481
4
votes
What are the benefits to using 128X microstepping drivers on the X and Y axis of a FFF printer?
Prints benefit from higher microstepping in two ways:
Noise level
Using microstepping reduces noise from your printer's operation.
Print quality
Using higher resolution microstepping does not ...
- 14.8k
4
votes
Extruder stepper motor problem, what can be wrong?
I also faced similar problem. Mine was a self-made marlin/repetier. The problem was that the motor current was much less than the motor requirement and the axis were not calibrated properly. Giving ...
- 59
4
votes
Accepted
Step motors vibrate, don't move at all (Prusa I3)
Usually if they get too hot you have to adjust the amperage by turning the little potentiometer on the A4988 (turn left until you can move the motor by hand, turn right until you cant, add a little ...
- 904
4
votes
Z-Axis doesn't work only during printing
I would check the gcode you're generating to make sure it's not full of "bad" z-commands.
Further, I'd take any gcode file you have and manually edit it, leaving in all the initializations, ...
- 3,013
4
votes
Z-Axis doesn't work only during printing
Carl Witthoft, I think you are on to something with rogue commands limiting the Z-Axis. Thank you for pressing me to try a new program. Now I need to learn it...
So, it works now. The only ...
- 81
4
votes
Pololu - connect motor supply ground and logic supply ground
(This is more of an electronics.stackexchange.com question btw).
It is not only ok, it is absolutely necessary. The systems won't operate correctly unless all the gnds are tied together. Since this ...
- 2,360
4
votes
Accepted
What are the downsides of high stepper current OR power?
There is a downside.
If the current is too high, you lose the linearity of micro-stepping. If the highest current exceeds the maximum, then the highest current micro-stepping positions will collapse ...
- 4,481
4
votes
Accepted
Anet A8 Installing second extruder without changing board
That is not possible without changing to a different printer main board. The Anet A8 board has 4 integrated (A4988) stepper drivers, one for X, one for Y, one for Z and one for E (extruder 0).
Both ...
- 34.5k
4
votes
Accepted
Can closed loop steppers be used for extruders?
Closed loop steppers like S42B are becoming popular for the spatial axes because compensating for skipped steps is the correct way to recover for those axes. For example, if the nozzle knocks into a ...
- 186
4
votes
Stepper Motors getting extremely hot
I notice that in "configuration_adv.h" for the BIGTREETECH-SKR-mini-E3, which uses TMC2209 drivers, the similar section has:
...
- 314
4
votes
Accepted
Adjust E-step on Ender 3
If there is no interface to set the value through the display, you can always set the E-steps per G-code.
M92 Set axis_steps_per_unit
There are at least 2 options,...
- 34.5k
3
votes
Nema Stepper used in Flashforge 3D printer
Nema 17 is about the physical size of the motor, ie screw hole placement. It doesn't specify anything about the power of the motor. If you are looking to replace the motor, you need quite a bit more ...
- 181
3
votes
Anet A8 extruder motor moves back and forth
The Anet A8 stepper motor 4 lead cable need to be correct in colour arrangement:
mother board end: black-green-blue-red and extrauder
stepper motor end: black-red-green-blue.
I bought DIY RepRap ...
- 31
3
votes
Accepted
Anet A8 extruder motor moves back and forth
Check the continuity of the wires on the cable. Sometimes, they are not crimped correctly. Another common fault is crossed wires. In either case, the easiest diagnostic test is to substitute another ...
- 3,090
3
votes
Accepted
How should I power these stepper motors
If the motors are in parallel, then setting it at 0.4V means each motor will only get a quarter of the current a single motor would get at 0.8V. If you set it to 0.8V each motor will get half. I think ...
- 14.8k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible