[newcncguy]

these are the steppers I bought
New Portescap Stepper Motor NEMA 23 - eBay (item 130505242777 end time May-04-11 19:32:10 PDT)
And I was wondering if this Interface Board would work with them
Stepper Motor Driver 5 Axis Interface Board adapter CNC - eBay (item 280629123412 end time Apr-13-11 08:39:06 PDT)

thank you in advance

[doorknob]

What type of CNC machine are you building?

Those motors look to be on the small side compared to motors that I have seen other builders use (the holding torque is rated at only 75 oz. in.), but might be OK for a very small machine.

The interface card to which you have linked appears to be a parallel port breakout board. It is not designed to drive stepper motors directly, rather you would need to connect a motor driver board (either one driver board per motor, or else find a driver board that is capable of handling more than one motor) between that interface board and your motor(s).

Since those motors are 4-wire units, make sure that you locate a driver board that is designed to drive "bipolar" stepper motors (do not get one that is designed to drive "unipolar" motors).

The four terminals per axis on the interface board to which you have linked are not designed for direct connection to the four wires of each of your stepper motor(s). Rather, for each axis there appears to be an "enable" pin (to tell the motor driver whether or not to apply power to that axis), a "direction" pin (clockwise or counterclockwise), a "step" pin (to advance the motor by one increment for every pulse on that pin), and a "common" or ground pin.

In addition it looks like the board has other inputs or outputs such as for handling relay control and limit switches.

[newcncguy]

thank you i think I understand I will do some reading up on drivers, And yes this is my first cnc and I started off small I was think something like a 10" by 10"

[newcncguy]

so would this be something that would work?
4 Axis CNC TB6560 Stepper Motor Driver Controller Board | eBay

What type of CNC machine are you building?

Those motors look to be on the small side compared to motors that I have seen other builders use (the holding torque is rated at only 75 oz. in.), but might be OK for a very small machine.

The interface card to which you have linked appears to be a parallel port breakout board. It is not designed to drive stepper motors directly, rather you would need to connect a motor driver board (either one driver board per motor, or else find a driver board that is capable of handling more than one motor) between that interface board and your motor(s).

Since those motors are 4-wire units, make sure that you locate a driver board that is designed to drive "bipolar" stepper motors (do not get one that is designed to drive "unipolar" motors).

The four terminals per axis on the interface board to which you have linked are not designed for direct connection to the four wires of each of your stepper motor(s). Rather, for each axis there appears to be an "enable" pin (to tell the motor driver whether or not to apply power to that axis), a "direction" pin (clockwise or counterclockwise), a "step" pin (to advance the motor by one increment for every pulse on that pin), and a "common" or ground pin.

In addition it looks like the board has other inputs or outputs such as for handling relay control and limit switches.

[doorknob]

That board has the advantage of combining the functions of the breakout board and a multi-axis motor driver board.

It is designed to work with bipolar stepper motors, so that part is good.

A couple of "buts", though.

First, that specific board is rated for use with motors that draw between 1.5 amperes and 3.5 amperes of current per winding. However your stepper motors are rated at 1.0 amperes per winding, which is out of range. You may be able to find a similar board that is rated for 1.0 amp motors (or, if you are handy with a soldering iron and have experience reworking printed circuit boards, you could buy that board and replace the precision resistors that set the supported current range).

Second, that board has a maximum motor voltage rating of 36 volts (although people who have used similar boards have recommended selecting a lower voltage power supply, perhaps limited to 30 volts or even 24 volts, in order to have some "breathing room" from the maximum rating to avoid burning out the driver chips). The specific motor that you chose has a relatively high winding inductance, and so it will prefer a higher drive voltage than you can safely support with that board. The higher the voltage, the faster you will be able to run the motor. Depending on your requirements, though, for a small machine like you are planning, the speed at that lower voltage may be OK.

Finally, some people have had problems with similar Chinese TB6560 driver boards, while others have found them to work OK in their applications. See the following thread for some discussion, including circuit changes that some folks have tried to remedy the problems that they have had:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/genera...y_chinese.html

[essjay]

Free Bump, hoping for an answer about that last stepper controller board posted! I have bought two and waiting on arrival, looks like they need motor drivers built for it and this is just a controller board, but would be great to have someone confirm that its useable for a cnc build? Been lurking and reading for ages now, this forum is fantastic!

[essjay]

whoops! just noticed newest posts are up the top on my compter at least, so this has already been answered lol phew! But everyone point and laugh at the newb, myself

[start here]

That board works OK. I've been running one for weeks with no probs & it runs my 5' x 5' table OK. It doesn't need fixing as per that other thread.

Make sure to tell them you want the lower current board if you do go ahead and buy it.

Just remember, you get what you pay for - don't expect the performance of a Gecko....

[essjay]

Stepper Motor Driver 5 Axis Interface Board adapter CNC - eBay (item 280629123412 end time May-13-11 08:39:06 PDT)

Is there any 'common' name for these 5 axis controller boards? thats what iv got two of arriving sometime soon i hope. Has anybody been using them, do they work ok?
I have assumed i need to build stepper drivers for it but seeing as i hope to eventually build a couple of machines i figured that i can make the drivers suit the motors and keep the same controller. Or have i got it all completely horribly wrong? Thanks in advance cnc gurus!

[doorknob]

Stepper Motor Driver 5 Axis Interface Board adapter CNC - eBay (item 280629123412 end time May-13-11 08:39:06 PDT)

Is there any 'common' name for these 5 axis controller boards? thats what iv got two of arriving sometime soon i hope. Has anybody been using them, do they work ok?
I have assumed i need to build stepper drivers for it but seeing as i hope to eventually build a couple of machines i figured that i can make the drivers suit the motors and keep the same controller. Or have i got it all completely horribly wrong? Thanks in advance cnc gurus!

They are commonly called "parallel port breakout boards".

That one is the same board that was linked to by the OP. I do not have any experience working with that specific board.

It probably has similar function to boards such as the "C10 bidirectional breakout board" from CNC4PC at CNC4PC, however there is not much in the way of documentation offered by the eBay seller, so that's just a guess.

Yes, it sounds like your plan to build motor drivers is a sound one.

[essjay]

phew thanks very much!

[bjesson]

newcncguy - here's the kit I am using and machining aluminum with on a 16"x16" cnc router...

4 Axis Nema 23 Stepper Motor 287oz-in & Driver CNC Kit | eBay

Precision is good, torque is good, it came with all docs to wire up and set current and microstepping. It also came with docs to config Mach3 and also came with Mach 3. I'm happy with the quality and ease of installation. On a personal note I would use something stronger then 75oz. in. steppers even in a 10x10 machine. If it is cost you are worried about then this is a bad choice of hobby

At minimum I would recommend something around 175 oz. in. because you will always want to do more once things start working. I have seen 175 oz in. kits from a seller in california for about $130 with shipping.

[newcncguy]

Yes I know now about looking for the "oz. in" that was after I bought this steppers I think I will buy one of those kits that you bought. for the steppers I all ready bought I might uses them for a small pcb cnc router.

newcncguy - here's the kit I am using and machining aluminum with on a 16"x16" cnc router...

4 Axis Nema 23 Stepper Motor 287oz-in & Driver CNC Kit | eBay

Precision is good, torque is good, it came with all docs to wire up and set current and microstepping. It also came with docs to config Mach3 and also came with Mach 3. I'm happy with the quality and ease of installation. On a personal note I would use something stronger then 75oz. in. steppers even in a 10x10 machine. If it is cost you are worried about then this is a bad choice of hobby

At minimum I would recommend something around 175 oz. in. because you will always want to do more once things start working. I have seen 175 oz in. kits from a seller in california for about $130 with shipping.

[AssassinXCV]

I'm planning on going for the HobbyCNC Pro Driver board. It can go up to 3Amps and they have a 4 axis version. The only thing is that you need to put it together yourself: http://www.hobbycnc.com/products/hob...er-board-kits/

The Easy series is for lower amperages. (0.5A-3A)
http://www.hobbycnc.com/products/hob...ver-board-kit/

[essjay]

Hurrah! My $20 ebay 5 axis parallel breakout board arrived today. Gotta say looking better than what I expected, looks halfway decent in fact. I will be plugging it in tonight and doing some tests and playing with it, but i still need to select my steppers and build appropriate drivers. Is there such a thing as overkill for steppers, if I go too big does it lose accuracy, or is bigger simply better for most applications?

Is it worth me documenting my fun and games with this $20 ebay 5 axis controller and building drivers etc, to post on here? Would anyone possibly cheap out and buy the $20 controller like i have or do most just go for a nice finished and trusted bit of kit? Wish i had the dollars to just buy and assemble a nice complete kit CNC for a first try, but dont have that kind of spare cash!

[newcncguy]

Please do, make a YouTube video if you can I would love to see it.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

[bjesson]

Hurrah! My $20 ebay 5 axis parallel breakout board arrived today. Gotta say looking better than what I expected, looks halfway decent in fact. I will be plugging it in tonight and doing some tests and playing with it, but i still need to select my steppers and build appropriate drivers. Is there such a thing as overkill for steppers, if I go too big does it lose accuracy, or is bigger simply better for most applications?

Is it worth me documenting my fun and games with this $20 ebay 5 axis controller and building drivers etc, to post on here? Would anyone possibly cheap out and buy the $20 controller like i have or do most just go for a nice finished and trusted bit of kit? Wish i had the dollars to just buy and assemble a nice complete kit CNC for a first try, but dont have that kind of spare cash!

Using your $20 board and building drivers may actually turn out to be more expensive but anything is possible. You might have been better off spending $60 on a TB6560 board since it has all the drivers built into it and steppers connect directly to it.

As far as choosing steppers it all depends on what you are doing. Accurracy isn't the case here it is torque. Most steppers operate with similar accuracy which is then controlled by the driver (and then to higher precision if the driver uses microstepping). I used 287 oz. in. steppers in my machine and can cut all types of wood and aluminum. The higher the torque the better but that also translates into higher prices.

Good Luck!

[essjay]

Yes, building my own may wind up costing me more than buying a read made well proven working design. But it will be more rewarding, and i doubt there would be anybody on these forums that would lament me wanting to build something that i believe is in the scope of my abilities rather than buying pre made. If all goes well, perhaps there will be a good cheap every-mans stepper driver design that others can replicate and modify for their use. Time will tell, but for the cost of discreet components, i will give it a try. Of course i dont count the cost of my time, as this is a hobby.

I will stop threadjacking this post, i will document and have a play with the board iv got, EMC seems talks to it just fine so on to designing stepper drivers, though it would help if i knew which steppers i was using... Still, onwards and upwards. If anyone is keen for current progress, PM me, otherwise i will post a new thread when i have something to show
Thanks for the tips and info thus far, and for a great community and information repository.