Help!
I am buildinng my first CNC machine. I decided to put together the electronics first because I am less familiar with it. It would suck to build the machine first and then not be able to get the electronics to work.
The setup:
- Three 6 wire unipolar stepper motors 3.6v 1.2a
- Three kitsrus k179 unipolar stepper motor drivers
- One converted ATX power supply
- One breakout board
- One 5v parallel port protector
The problem: The K179 has the ability to run the steppers internally or externally via the parallel port. At first I had two of the motors hooked up to 5v and seemed to run fine. At first all three hooked up to the 5v worked fine on the internal setting. When I hooked up one of the motors to the parallel port on 5v it got really hot, so I changed the hookup to 3.3v and the motors quit heating up.
Now when I run the motors internally they will run fine for several minutes and then the power supply will quit. When I restart the power supply the motor burps along and will only turn 1.8 degrees and then stop. If I leave the power supply and motors off over night the motors and controllers seem to work fine for several minutes/seconds/or even hours until the power supply stops. Once I restart the supply it all goes to heck again.
Even though I have only hooked up the three motors/controllers to 5v for a brief time I am concerned that I might have damaged the motors or controllers? Is the power supply the problem?
7ofclubs