[HPB]

Which of these boards do you have, the Red or Blue solder resist?

Do remember that the PWM chips are from Toshiba, I hope these are not Chinese bootleg.

These chips themselves are solid, but why someone could imagine gluing all three on the same PCB
with a common heat sink is what I don't understand, some manufacturers even stick a fan on the heat sink,
speaks volume of the art.

1. You will have to do a dead-reckoning of all PCB traces to the TB6560 chip.
2. Check if your PSU is not malfunctioning.
3. Pin 4 of TB6560AHQ is the enable input, & Pin 5 is the Reset input.
4. Ensure pin 4 is logic high to enable stepper functions, & pin 5 also high, taken this pin low
will reset the outputs to the motors.
At peak operations each chip draws 3.4Amps per phase so all three chip will require ~10.2Amps at peak loads.
Let's hope thermal cycling aren't causing some of the tracks or soldering to be come disjointed.

I must believe the way some of the tracks are laid may be contributing to this malfunctioning!

Good luck.

NOTE: I disclaim all of the above, even if it sets your CNC on fire.

Kind regards,
Hanspeter.

[Wes296]

Hi, prior to reading your reply I have checked my new TB6560 chip in the axis in question to find pin 11 and 13 are grounded the chip when it went in wasn't so I assume there must be a component somewhere causing this. Now i haven't a clue what would cause this?

The board i have is the blue one.

[HPB]

Hi, prior to reading your reply I have checked my new TB6560 chip in the axis in question to find pin 11 and 13 are grounded the chip when it went in wasn't so I assume there must be a component somewhere causing this. Now i haven't a clue what would cause this?
The board i have is the blue one.

Hi, Pins 11,14 are B/A-channel current sensing resistors respectively to ground. Pin 13 is channel-A P/N Mosfet Out-AM, note that
all mosfets exhibit parasitic diode across it's Source & Drain channel. Should the NMosfet channel short for what ever reason you're
going to read an electrical short on pin 13, but remember to first disconnect pins 11 & 14 from PCB before test.
Ensure all power capacitors are discharged, motors disconnected as well as the PSU.

Should the chip die temperature hit ~170°C your chip will shutdown for safety reasons. Note that the die temp is not the same as
heat sink temp!

The die substrate is electrically connected to the backside of the aluminum heat sink, should current flow through the heat sink,
the TB6560AHQ will/may malfunction!

Just one thing, ensure there is a silicone heat transfer pad on each chip so as to insulate all chips electrically.

Cheers,
Hans.

[H500]

Troubleshoot step by step. Start with the easy stuff

- what voltage is on pins 8, 18 and 20 ? These are the power supplies.
- what voltage is on pins 1,2,22,21,24,25 ? Make sure the proper drive mode is selected.
- what voltage is on pins 4 and 5?

[JustCurtis]

Thank everyone for all the hard work on this. I am going to be doing several mods to my 3 axis. I have some questions about start up sequence idea. I run external 12v for cooling fans. I want to pull 12v and 5v regulator off of board and reuse 5v regulator with my external 12v and run that into the 5v pad on board. This way I can manually switch on the 12v/5v circuit, then after switch on 120v to the PS. I am not concerning myself with power glitches or anything that requires more thought. I just figured this would help. Does anyone see any problems I am going to cause by doing this? Also, I am curious about my sequence at this point. I am thinking turn on computer, open mach3, switch on 12v/5v, switch on PS, enable reset in mach3. Would exactly reverse of this be shut down sequence? If I switch off PS, then disable reset in mach3, for shut down, would this cause caps to drain or would this just be a bad idea to do? Thanks to all who have helped me, even when it meant reading over 700 posts.

[H500]

You should be ok if you switch 5v on first and off last. It will prevent surges into the fets.

[pierantoine]

I'have the 3 axis tb6560 blue board but my resistors are 2k, do i'have to tweak it? it looks like the M version but with 2k instead of 10k nresistors...
anyone have an idea ? i'haven't tried it but don't want to burn it at first start...
thanks for your help.

[JustCurtis]

I have performed several mods on the 3 axis version of the board. I performed each mod and tested unit after to trial and error this board. I have increased my IPM by 3 times and quieted down the whole system. Had a few observations and a few questions.

I replaced the current sense resistors with 0.33 ohms to run 1.5 amp motors. I switched currents switches to 100% and all motors now run cool to the touch at 28V. I have tested current draw on the power supply. Running three 1.5 amp motors I never draw more then 1.2 amps total moving all motors at once. Am I missing something? I have a 5 amp supply and tested current because I expected a larger number requiring a larger supply.

I replaced the OSC capacitors with 330pf and removed the current save resistor and transistor. This really helped with the noise factor. The motor hissing and high pitched noised have been eliminated.

I removed the 12V regulator and installed it in a separate 12V supply(wall wart) which I then soldered to the pads for the original regulator output. I can now switch logic power on first, then switch on motor power. When done I switch off motor power first and wait for power LED on supply to go out and switch off logic power. Running all my cooling fans on same regulator and it does not get warm anymore.

I installed a 74LS14 on all step and direction pins. This helped speed system up. Just to test, I installed jumpers to bypass optos and this increased speed even more. I then removed the 74LS14. System went from 8 IPM to 30 IPM on my Y axis with no grinding noise. My Y axis is 2 lead screws moving gantry run by belt. My X axis is a single lead screw connected directly to motor which has requires less torque to move and I can not run in above 15 IPM. I determined the slower the decay mode on X axis the higher I can go. At 25% I can move axis 30 IPM to match but the motor makes more noise. All three motors are the same and my Y and Z are running 30 IPM with fast decay which means they are very quiet. Any idea what to check? I seems the motor is developing less torque on my X axis then the other two unless I reduce decay mode which I would like to avoid if possible due to noise. I am going to swap motor connections tonight to see if problem stays with one chip or if it may be motor.

So definitely recommend current sense resistors, OSC capacitor, kill current save, and bypass optos. Bypassing optos made a much bigger difference in speed and sound then the buffer did.

Thank you for any responses to my questions.

[Mc7donald]

Thank you for any responses to my questions.

[H500]

A simple resonance damper might help. (do a search on this site)

[kuroguy]

I have one of these boards except it doesn't have the D9 connector (lower left in image) for connecting inputs, just the white 5 pin connector shown in the image at http://www.cnczone.com/forums/attach...d-cntr_top.jpg adjacent to the D9. Anybody know a part number for the mating connector?

[Klaufi]

Wow, nice thread, helps a lot

Since today I'm owner of on of these 3-axis-boards and I also had problems with missing steps and jerky movement. But instead of using a 74hc14, I just removed the 6.8M pulldown resistor and changed it to 100k. In this way the electric charge that makes the photoresistor conductive is dissipated much quicker than before, I guess. I also trimmed away the connection to the power-down-circuit as shown in the drawing, maybe this just did the trick, idk.

But I also stumbled upon another mystery with this board: as I plugged in a stepper for the first time, the TB6560AHQ of this stage died with stinky smoke. It could be, that this stage was enabled due to wrong settings, but I'm not sure. It also appeared, that the IC wasn't properly connected with the heatsink (pictures below). Does anyone know, how this problem was able to occur?

[doorknob]

as I plugged in a stepper for the first time, the TB6560AHQ of this stage died with stinky smoke. It could be, that this stage was enabled due to wrong settings, but I'm not sure.

When you say that you plugged in the stepper, was that done with the motor power connected to the board (and energized)? If so, that is probably not a good thing to do, regardless of the enable signal value.

[Klaufi]

Ok, good to know that...
Yes, the board was powered and the controller (arduino uno with grbl) was connected, but idk if the enable pin was high or not.
But when the enable is low, there shouldn't be any voltage on the motor outputs, or am I on the wrong way?
With my old driver with L297/L298 it wasn't a problem at all.

Now I have been able to swap tha damaged IC and after some more testing I found out that the change of the resistor hasn't changed much. When I get close to 10000 Hz step frequency, the motors start jerking (before my change, it was also at lower frequencies). Maybe I need to implement the inverter also to get the board work right with higher frequencies.

[broomy]

I keep getting updates on this thread, after years it seems.I replied once ,i have been fooling around with CNC routers for years.I suggested once that you blokes who waste a lot of time redesigning wonkey el cheapo boards from Asia,should buy a Gecko ,especially when most of you are in the US,never ceases to amaze me.I bought ,fitted,and forgot a Gecko G540,about 6 years ago.It runs in a tin shed here in Australia,where day temps get up to 40C ambient,up to 80% humidity, one small cooling fan off a computer that's all! I have NO connection with Gecko,sent an email once-the only contact ever!I have plenty of other hiccups without trying to be a space cadet.Think about it,Baz

[aarggh]

I keep getting updates on this thread, after years it seems.I replied once ,i have been fooling around with CNC routers for years.I suggested once that you blokes who waste a lot of time redesigning wonkey el cheapo boards from Asia,should buy a Gecko ,especially when most of you are in the US,never ceases to amaze me.I bought ,fitted,and forgot a Gecko G540,about 6 years ago.It runs in a tin shed here in Australia,where day temps get up to 40C ambient,up to 80% humidity, one small cooling fan off a computer that's all! I have NO connection with Gecko,sent an email once-the only contact ever!I have plenty of other hiccups without trying to be a space cadet.Think about it,Baz

I pretty much ignore this thread generally for those very reasons!

cheers, Ian

[RCjunkie]

How do you wire a 6 or 8 wire stepper to this board?

[doorknob]

How do you wire a 6 or 8 wire stepper to this board?

Hook up the 6-wire motor using "half-coil" wiring for a bipolar driver.

Hook up the 8-wire motor for "bipolar parallel".

See UniPolar vs BiPolar wiring schemes for 2-phase Stepper Motors

[Sion1138]

I had three of these go bad. One I have scavenged for parts, two I still have.

One of them had one chip go bad, which I replaced but it still doesn't work. What other components commonly fail alongside the chip?

One of them just failed completely after I switched the relay on (turns on a plasma cutter). There is no visible damage and the LEDs light up normally, it just wont run the motors.

[dansau74]

Hi Ding.
Wold you like to share what specific driver and breakout board you got ?(link to products) so I can put my blue 5 axis in the bin.
Regards Daniel from norway