[cas17013]

After searching the site, I have not been able to really answer this question so I thought maybe there may be someone here who could help. I purchased a few old Compumotor (M57-83) driver/stepper combos to power a small CNC router I have built, and I am somewhat lost on the connection of the input wires. I have the manual for the drivers that specifies the wire designation/colors for an accomponing indexer, but the drivers I have; had the original connector replaced so I do not have anything relative to the manual to do the connections.

According to the manual the connections are as follows:
Indexer wire color driver/driver connector
step output + = RED = pin "B"
step output - = BLK = pin "D"
dir output + = GRN = pin "A"
dir output - = WHT = pin "E"
shutdown out + = BLU = pin "C"
shutdown return - = BRN = pin "F"

This would answer all my questions if the input plug on the driver was still there but instead I have six wires. A purple, white, red, yellow, brown, and grey with nothing to distinguish them and no match to the colors of the indexer output wire.

So can I test these wire any way to determine what is what?

Or perhaps someone knows the color code?

And finaly.... What are the odds of frying this thing if I just try random connections to my breakout board?

[cas17013]

Maybe a photo will help?

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...z/P1011155.jpg

[Bobbyr70]

odds are great that smoke happens when you random select connections.
What exactly is the problem? the motor has six wires? the motors should have come with instructions stating which colors mean what. the rest is just connecting.
breakout board should designate step direction out to drive drive states motor b+ a+ B- a- etc. being you have 6 wires there is a center tap. Look on the website for wiring directions for series or parallel connections. I have a book that describes how to sort out wires on a stepper motor if you are interested in purchasing it. It took me about 3 hrs of reading and playing with an ohm meter and I purchased all I needed to retrofit a milling machine to steppers. breakout boards, power supplies,stepper drivers,etc. It all works fine. I purchased the book from someone on Ebay, turns out they have a website and are part of this network forum as well. I forget off hand who sells it but if you want the book that comes with a kit and you have an ohm meter it will be well worth the money spent to study it. Oh and I read a bit slow. Learn well but have to review things often to get the full intent of the information.

[cas17013]

Bobbyr70, What I am trying to do is connect the driver to the PC, and not to the motor. What I have is six random wires, and a blank breakout board that is not specific to this driver. I am assuming that I will connect the dir +, and step + to the pin specified in my Mach3 configuration, and then conect the dir -, and step - to the ground terminals on the breakout. My problem is that I have no information, nor is there any on the web I have been able to locate in over a weeks worth of searching specifying what color wire from the driver represents the dir +/-, and or step +/-. So my question is...... How can I test each wire to determine what function it represents? I have opened the case to the connection on the PC board, and there is no markings, so I thought either someone may know specificly what each wire does, or if I can test each wire in any fashion to determine this.

Thanks!

[cas17013]

I guess another possible piece of important information is that this driver has a self contained power supply so the wiring may differ from some other systems commonly used that have a seperate power supply, and the associated wiring. I think I will try to post a better photo for clarification shortly.

[cas17013]

I hope I am not making this too simple, but perhaps these photos will help explain what I need since I am no expert in this area, and my questions may be a little off.

This is a photo of all of the connections to the driver. From left to right the first connection is for the motor which is ready to go, and I have no questons about. The center connection is for the 110VAC input to power everything, and once again no worries here. The right side connection is the input from the pc, and as you can see the connector has been removed so I can not use the pin designations listed in my manual because with the connector gone there is no designations on the six individual wires. Also in the photo is the breakout board I am using..... I plan to use the default settings in Mach3 for each axis so I am assuming the step + & dir + for each axis will go to the assigned pin, and the step - & dir - will go to the ground pins on the breakout (18-24 if memory serves me?) I also have shutdown connections to the driver, but my plan was to not use them, and use Mach 3 and it's assigned pins to connect limits, and a manual stop button.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...P1011156-1.jpg

The next two photos are of the board, and the input wire connection. Again, there is no marking I can find to identify what each individual wire does.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...z/P1011157.jpg
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...P1011158-1.jpg

This one is the multimeter I have. It is pretty basic, but is there any function I can use with it to distinguish what wire does what, or at least narrow down my options to reduce the risk I let the smoke out of something by going the trial & error mehod.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1...z/P1011159.jpg

Perhaps there is no simple answer here, but there seems to be plenty of very bright folks on here, so maybe someone can steer me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance for any insight anyone can offer

[jeffs555]

The diagram shows opto isolator inputs, so it is unlikely you will damage anything by trying different connections. Before connecting to your breakout board, I would identify the correct inputs by driving them with a few AA batterys wired in series. First thing to find would be the "Shutdown" input. With the motor connected and power on the drive, one pair of wires should lock and unlock the motor from being turned by hand even with the step and direction inputs unconnected. Once you find the "Shutdown" input, connect it so the motor is locked(ie the drive enabled). Then find the Step input by trying the remaining inputs two at a time until you see the motor step. The remaining two inputs would be the direction.

[Jeremiah]

I have one of these drives, when I get home from work monday morning, I
will open it up and give you a cross reference based on your photos of the
innards of your drive. I hope I can help.

[cas17013]

Thanks guys. I was able to make a little headway. I discovered that the lead to the matched motor did have the same wire color as the manual so I compared the driver wires to the known motor wires, and by doing this I was able to get a little closer I think. The actual motor wires had a few jumpers, but the motor output terminal wire colors on the driver appear to match the wire determinations I think to be correct. I feel certain I have the step +, and the dir + on the input side figured out, and the step -, and dir - are transposed according to my assumptions. This leaves the two remaining as the shutdown leads. I plan to try testing with the battery method now that I am a bit closer. I am also wondering if I am correct to assume that the - leads can be simply connected to the ground on my breakout board? Thanks so far for your help everyone, and if you can check yours Jeremiah that would be a great help.

[Jeremiah]

I checked my drive (m57-83-r12-d0), And looking at the photos of your
drive the wire colors matched going left to right are as follows.
yellow brown gray white orange purple.

However the pinouts seem to differ, they are as follows

Yellow= pin D

Brown= pin E

Gray= pin F

White= pin C

Orange= pin A


O.K., I think I have it figured out, Compumotor couldn't stick with the same
color scheme from the circuit board thru their ( pulse source cable kit) to
the user end application. They changed/swapped colors at the plug. So
I dug up my pulse source cable kit that came with the drive and rang it
out with my fluke meter. here is the translation.

FUNCTION-------- PULSE SOURCE CABLE COLOR-------YOUR CABLE COLOR

Step+--------------red---------------------------------purple

Step- --------------black------------------------------yellow

Dir+----------------green------------------------------orange

Dir- ----------------white------------------------------brown

Shutdwn+-----------blue-------------------------------white

shutdwn- -----------brown-----------------------------gray

Hope this helps, I will leave the cover off the drive in case you have any
more questions.

[cas17013]

Jeremiah,

Thank you so much for that information! It confirms what I thought everything to be, and now I guess I will connect everything up, and find out for sure. This was my first post after joining, after reading as much information that I could, I have to say you guys are great.

Perhaps I could get some feedback on something else..... The machine I am building now is my first experience with cnc, and while my design/build for the machine has exceeded my expectations, I wonder if anyone who has used this motor/driver system could tell me if this is any good? What I have is small (10" x 14" x 3.5" on the Z) table, and I plan for now just to use a dremel, as the cutting tool. I used thomson super 8 bearings on every axis, and the motion is silky smooth, solid as a rock,and with hardy any friction losses to overcome. I only expect mediocre results with 80 in/oz of torque, but I am kinda looking for a warm fuzzy responce that these things (M57-83) are not total junk. I only paid $60 for all three, and this is only an experiment ($150 so far) to see if I have what it takes before I dump a pile of money into building a large machine with more appropriate electricals.

Thanks again everyone, you have moved me one step closer to having a new, and exciting toy.

Chris

[Jeremiah]

Chris, if you only paid $60 for three motors and drives you did good (if they
all work). The good about them is they plug into a regular 120v household
outlet,(no external dc supply required for the motor drivers). I had two of
these motors on my Grizzly 7x12 lathe and they worked fine. The reason I
took them off was that the resolution (25,000) steps/rev,combined with
the leadscrew pitch and my attempt at electronic threading using a 486/66
computer. I just could not get the speed on the Z axis to keep up with the
spindle. But otherwise they worked fine. If you are planning to use these on
a mill you should be fine (depending on your leadscrew pitch). These motor/
driver combos should have no problem winging a Dremel around at a good
speed. When you get them hooked up be careful of touching the motors
because they do run hot. With that said, I am still in pursuit of electronic
threading on my lathe. I have tried larger motors/drives/faster computer/
pulley sizes etc, without luck. The leadscrew pitch seems to limiting me to
the lower spindle speeds at which the torque of the spindle on the mini-lathe
sucks. So I'm in the process of converting to ballscrews. But to answer your
question, those stepper/combos should do fine for you. I tried bigger ones
for my quest, and they did no better than what I started out with.
Good luck.

[cas17013]

Chris, if you only paid $60 for three motors and drives you did good (if they
all work). The good about them is they plug into a regular 120v household
outlet,(no external dc supply required for the motor drivers). I had two of
these motors on my Grizzly 7x12 lathe and they worked fine. The reason I
took them off was that the resolution (25,000) steps/rev,combined with
the leadscrew pitch and my attempt at electronic threading using a 486/66
computer. I just could not get the speed on the Z axis to keep up with the
spindle. But otherwise they worked fine. If you are planning to use these on
a mill you should be fine (depending on your leadscrew pitch). These motor/
driver combos should have no problem winging a Dremel around at a good
speed. When you get them hooked up be careful of touching the motors
because they do run hot. With that said, I am still in pursuit of electronic
threading on my lathe. I have tried larger motors/drives/faster computer/
pulley sizes etc, without luck. The leadscrew pitch seems to limiting me to
the lower spindle speeds at which the torque of the spindle on the mini-lathe
sucks. So I'm in the process of converting to ballscrews. But to answer your
question, those stepper/combos should do fine for you. I tried bigger ones
for my quest, and they did no better than what I started out with.
Good luck.

Thanks for all the information. I am no using leadscrews, but rater a 1mm wire rope, and pulleys to control the motion of the X&Y In my opinion they do a wonderfull job of eliminating any bind by pulling equaly on both sides of the axis. They are running off an approx. .675 diameter pulley, and then the travel is again reduce by half with my pulley configuration. I will find out in a few days how well it works.