[austin.mn]

not long ago i bought a bunch of IB462-FE1 stepper drives. i haven't been able to get them working though. there is a mild difference between these and a standard IB462. they do not have a half/full pin on them, instead they have a +5V input pin. i opened one up to take a look, and there is a pair of optocouplers in there and l298/l297 drive translator chips.

if anyone has had any experience with these please help me out... i am going totally bonkers trying to decide what the issue could be.

[juppiter]

Hello, i had the same problem with the same version of drivers. I wrote to technical support, but is out for summer.
I think FE1 is a special version of IB462-S, with optocoupler source on pin 2, plus minor differences.

In -S version to enable the driver you have to open enable pin, but in standard you need to connect to ground pin.

I connected to step and cw/ccw pins two resistor in series, but nothing happens. I'll try to reconnect the driver with open collector method.
A strange measure: from ground to step pin: negative voltage?!? Same on cw/ccw.

If you solved the problem please write the solution down here.

Best Regards
Alessandro

[pminmo]

where di you buy them from? do you have any pictures?

[juppiter]

pminmo:
i bought via ebay in India a couple of months ago.
I can send you the name of the seller via pm if you need.

I bought also a very good pws switch mode (3A) and another @80V

These are basically the well known L297-L298, that i already have working in a cnc. This is a new project for a mincro mill.

Best regards
Alessandro

[pminmo]

What is the part number of the optocouplers?

Just a hunch, the +5V is the positive side of the opto's detector and the step, dir and enable pins are active low. So the active low drivers need to utilize the same gnd as the 5V source. One side is motor power and motor gnd. (high current) The other side is 5V and gnd for optos. GNDs shouldn't connect together, you would defeat the isolation.

[juppiter]

Thank you!
I have just opened the box. Why I didn't think it before?

I discovered there is an optocoupler tagged HP 2630.
I searched it and confirmed the fact you exposed:

Step and Direction pins must use the same ground of parallel port (yes i confirm it: I don't understand so much of electronic!!!), but +5v-in must use the same ground of the motor supply, so now i only need to understand how to derive +5v from +40v with my poorman 7805 ( i think it can only take maximum voltage of 30V).

In fact before i connected the logic ground to another source (7805), not the pc ground. I hope i've not destroyed the optocouplers...

I'll try these driver with a pc power supply (+12v, and +5v with same ground) to test them.

Do you think is correct?
Stay tuned.

The wise man knows he's stupid, while the stupid man thinks he's wise.

[Stepper Monkey]

I am not an electronics guy, so PLEASE don't cook something just on my assumptions, but my IMS 483's manual states that you can safely run the higher motor voltage into the +5v opto power IF you put a limiting resistor in line to limit the current. It even gives a chart of voltages/resistor values to use to do this. I believe this might be common to other optocouplers as well from what I have observed with my limited knowledge.

I don't know anything beyond that, but it might be something to ask the experts (pminmo, etc.) about, and whether this would work for you and if it is a good idea. Also, the complete manual for the 482 is available online from IMS. I don't have mine handy but it might also cover this topic.