[CNC pupil]

An advanced thanks for any help.

I bought a driver, motor and breakout board combo from Wantai.

DQ860MA Stepper Driver
85BYGH450c--012B
Breakout Board

The spec sheets are attached to this message.

I need to know what are the appropriate settings for the dip switches on the driver and also the Driver Timer Settings in LinuxCNC. I have included a pictures of the dip switches on the driver plus pictures of the rest of my connections. I have the motor working at this point but it jerks at high and low speeds. I am pretty sure I have something set wrong.







Here is a screen shot from the LinuxCNC manual. On this window I only need help on Step Time, Step Space, Direction Hold and Direction Setup. The values shown are examples.



Thanks
Mike

[aarongough]

Did you get any manuals or datasheets with your drivers? The info should be in there... Unless someone know that specific driver we won't be able to help you from the info posted so far...

Very nice photos by the way!

[CNC pupil]

Yes...Hmm...I thought I attached those. Let me try again.

I looked through the manuals and I am not able to determine what values I should be setting. Maybe someone can help me understand.

I have attached the manuals to this reply.

[aarongough]

Unfortunately the datasheets you have provide no info about the timing of step/dir signals...

Just try the default settings to begin with, they'll likely work but they aren't exactly optimized to give you the highest step rates.

[alan_3301]

look at the bottom of this page
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/steppe...ai_motors.html

Im not sure how to interpret that, 2500 for all fields?

[aarongough]

Nice!

That's 2500ns for each signal.

[CNC pupil]

Great thanks!

So I will input this:

Step Time: 2500
Step Space: 2500
Direction Hold: 2500
Direction Setup: 2500

Should direction hold and setup be different?

How about the settings for the dip switches? Any ideas on what this should be?

Thanks
Mike

[alan_3301]

Yeah try 2500 for all of them and see what happens.

as for the dip switches, I think that is what sets the microstepping. Look in the manual.. Probably 1/8 or 1/12 somewhere around there

[CNC pupil]

I tried 2500ns for all fours values and I get no response at all now. I put my settings back to:

Step Time: 5050
Step Space: 5050
Direction Hold: 500
Direction Setup: 500

These where numbers I got from a different model of driver from the same factory. But I get a lot of jittering at some low speeds.

[alan_3301]

But at higher speeds it is ok? Are you using a stepper motor that is suited for your driver? You might want to check and see what people with your driver are using.

[CNC pupil]

Yes, it sounds fine at higher speeds. But I also don't think I am reaching its top speed.

I have searched but have not had much luck finding any information on what settings people are using. I've emailed the mfg a couple times. They have provided the manuals that I posted but they wont comment on settings.

[chester88]

look here for ideas of other drives:
LinuxCNC Documentation Wiki: Stepper Drive Timing

having too large timing numbers limits your top speed.
Too low can lead to missed steps or non functioning drive.

I'd try 5000 for all - that should work for almost anything worth having.
When it functions correctly then you can experiment with lower numbers.
usually you can find the step timing minimums, harder to get the direction timing from manufacturer.
You will almost always increase the timing they give you do to breakout boards opto isolation.

I would set the drive for 1600 steps per inch (1/8th) for starters.

of course the drive current should be set appropriately for the motors.
and the motor wires confirmed correctly connected.

Some breakoutboards require 5v parallel port output and some ports only give 3.3v
can you confirm the pulses are coming out of the breakout board?

Chris M

[chester88]

I would turn switch 4 off so full current all the time.

[JVWilliams]

I'm arriving late to this thread, but since I just bought some of these from Wantai and have been doing some research, I thought I'd share what I found, in case it's useful to others.

I believe this device (and several similar ones) are actually rebranded LeadShine drivers:

Leadshine Technology - Home

http://www.leadshine.com/UploadFile/Down/M880Am.pdf

The data sheet specifies minimum pulse widths of 1.5 microseconds.

Having opened up one of these drivers, the optocouplers on the inputs are different between the "enable" inputs and the "pulse" inputs. The optocouplers on the enable inputs are Sharp PC817's, which are fairly slow. The optocouplers on the pulse inputs, by contrast, are type HCPL-2531:

http://www.fairchildsemi.com/ds/6N/6N136.pdf

Those have typical combined rise/fall times on the order of 1 microsecond.

If you're using the Wantai breakout board, it has type EL817 optocouplers on all outputs. As others have pointed out, those are slow devices, and will limit the performance quite a bit (they are specified at 80 kHz cutoff frequency, with combined rise/fall times of 7 microseconds or more, meaning the minimum pulse widths may be 5-10 microseconds or more). Since the DQ860ma already has optocouplers on the inputs, unless you have long wire runs between the break-out board and the drivers that might pick up some induced voltage spikes, there's really no reason to run optocouplters on the break-out board and you can bypass them. Doing so will invert the pulses.

[CNC pupil]

JVWilliams

Thanks for that information, it really explains my speed issue. I have resorted to gearing in order to speed up my machine but would love to not rely on it.

I am a bit of a novice on the hardware side of things but understand the basic components. You explained that I should bypass the optocouplers on the breakout board. Have you done this? Does it require removing the optocouplers or is their a jumper I can set?

Thanks for the help

[JVWilliams]

I'll admit -- I was lazy, and ordered a different breakout board (CNC4PC model C1G). Basically, though, you could use the Wantai BOB if you took the inputs of the optocouplers and used those as the outputs directly. Unfortunately, there's no jumper you could set - this would require work with a soldering iron and, probably, a magnifier.

You could de-solder the EL817 optocouplers (near the output terminals) from the board if you feel comfortable with desoldering surface-mount components, and solder wires from the input pads to the output pads (pin 1 to pin 4). You might also want to desolder the output pull-up resistors.

If you do this, the output would be driven directly from the 74HCT14 Schmitt trigger inverters.

[nixfindus]

Hello I'am new in this Forum I have the same Problem to find the Setting on the DIP Switches for the Steps. Please can you tell me your Final setting?
Thank you and regards
Wolfgang

[tommylight]

I have some of those drives and tested them plenty and i know for sure you won't get any use out of them if you do not set the timings above 10000 for step time and space and 5000 for direction. At those setings they do preform quite well and have plenty of torque.
You have yours set @5A and that is to much for your motor, you have to set it @3.5A RMS so that would be OFF OFF ON for the first 3 switches and also set all the other switches to ON to have it at half step or 400 pulses per revolution so you can have a bit of speed too.
Regards,
Tom

[nixfindus]

Thank you Tom for the Answer.
It is right that I can use this Driver only with Microstepss?
I nee not so a good Resolution in my actually Project.
Did I have a possibility to use the Motor without Microsteps?

In Detail My Project are, that I will Control the Motor with an Arduino UNO to build a Round Table. So I'am on search for a Library or some Informations to speak with the Driver.
It is more necessary to bring Power to the Table then accuracy.

Regards Wolfgang

[tommylight]

Read my last post, you have actual settings that you need to make it work properly.
Regards,
Tom