[terry1956]

hi chaps. I am trying to make a TB6560 control card work. I have set up the pins from an internet site which give the settings for the card using Mach 3.
all I am getting is noise from the motors. I am at a loss as t what to do.And a bi pissed off at Chinese junk that does not work. Is there a better hobby use card available for mach 3 use and a proxxon mf70 mll. which is easy to set up and wit real clear instructions I am in the uk. michael

[James Newton]

There are many better hobby use cards... in fact, pretty much any driver OTHER than a TB6560 is going to be better no matter where it comes from. The TB6560 was never intended to be used in a stand alone stepper driver system, the datasheet for the chip specifically says it will fry randomly on power up if it doesn't have the right power up sequence, and not a single design I've ever seen implements that correctly. Other chips, like the THB6064AH, or DRV8825, or whatever support the power up sequence you can expect with a stand alone driver.

And Chinese junk would be good to avoid. A quick search for US based stepper motor drivers will find many many options. I would personally recommend geckodrive.com but they may be out of your price range. If you don't mind building a kit, my drivers are high quality and (I believe) well thought of.

Whatever you do, don't buy another TB6560 from anyone. And try to avoid Chinese crap.

[fretman_2]

Can you provide a link to your site for your kits?

[James Newton]

Can you provide a link to your site for your kits?

It's right there in my signature... part of my wiki:
www.piclist.com/techref/io/steppers.htm

Or you can order from:
massmind.ecomorder.com/techref/ecomprice.asp?s=2091

You want the 6064 driver.

[Curbfeeler]

I bought from James Newton yesterday after previously wasting money on tb6600 drivers from china. The China garbage lasted a week. I'm serious. A week! I really wish I'd seen the Lucas thread about how bad my drivers were, but alas I found it after I already had them in hand. I tried to make them work, but they just didn't. I'm excited about the massmind.org drivers, though. The most exciting part is if they ever do have an issue, I'll have built them and will have no fear of repairing them. Very affordable, too. Actually about the same price as the China ones, crazy as that sounds. Yes, I do have to build them....

Dan

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[James Newton]

And... we actually provide technical support.

[A_Camera]

hi chaps. I am trying to make a TB6560 control card work. I have set up the pins from an internet site which give the settings for the card using Mach 3.
all I am getting is noise from the motors. I am at a loss as t what to do.And a bi pissed off at Chinese junk that does not work. Is there a better hobby use card available for mach 3 use and a proxxon mf70 mll. which is easy to set up and wit real clear instructions I am in the uk. michael

There is no need to be pissed off at all. You get what you pay for. Besides, the problem is not that the driver is Chinese but that it uses a Japanese junk, called Toshiba TB6560. So, don't blame the Chinese, nobody can make anything good out of that crappy Toshiba driver chip, even if some people success better than others. There are much better drivers out there but they cost some more if you go for individual axis drivers. I am using DQ542MA drivers and they work excellently. Very easy to set up, no need for any tweaks or instruments just to get you going and no need for any electronic knowledge. But if you buy cheap you should NOT expect to get the same service you get if you buy expensive. If you want super good documentation in perfectly fluent English than you have to pay CONSIDERABLY more. I don't know the often bespoken Gecko drives, I am sure they are good, but not so sure they are better than the DQ542MA. If they are worth the price or not... well, that's up to you. Personally I can't validate the costs because I don't see the benefits. Yes, documentation is definitely supposed to be better, but functionality... I don't think so. If I'd run a business I'd consider it differently, but for a hobby I think the Gecko is definitely an overkill.

[victorofga]

yes the 542 drives are good..

they have midband resonance dampening, also they featuring in idle the motors pulling only 60 percent of power, so no more over heating on long run..

leadshine has amrican branch even.. at Irwin California

you also can take a look on arduino.. for hobby...

[James Newton]

There is no need to be pissed off at all. You get what you pay for. Besides, the problem is not that the driver is Chinese but that it uses a Japanese junk, called Toshiba TB6560. So, don't blame the Chinese, nobody can make anything good out of that crappy Toshiba driver chip, even if some people success better than others.

I generally agree with A_Camera, but there is one minor correction I have to make here: The TB6560 is NOT a bad chip. It works very well and at a very good cost when used as specified in the data sheet. Specifically, it MUST have logic power (+5 volts) BEFORE motor power when starting. The problem comes when every single Chinese driver using the chip derives logic power from motor power with a regulator chain: 7812 to 7805. This means that the logic power ALWAYS comes up AFTER the motor power. And that is a weakness in the TB6560. It was never intended for that use... it was to be used in printers and fax machines and so on where the power up sequence could be carefully controlled as part of the overall system design. Using it in a stand alone driver is the fault of the Chinese entirely.

Toshiba makes good chips, when used as per the datasheet. The THB6064AH is a great chip, which doesn't have that issue.

Lot's of people have had good luck with the DQ542MA drivers... they seem to be pretty good. I'd love to have someone test my THB6064AH driver against a DQ542MA...

[WoodWorkerB]

James, You have a great site - lot of good info. Thanks for sharing.
I agree, don't blame the chip, but rather the poor implementation, cheap price, cheap quality and no support.
Like James, I provide support, and an alternative to the cheap "eBay no-support cheap boards".
Mine are built on a tried-and-true chip, we've got 1000s of them out in the real world. All quality, name-brand components. PCB made here in the USA.
Take a look: HobbyCNC.com.
BrianV

[James Newton]

James, You have a great site - lot of good info. Thanks for sharing.
I agree, don't blame the chip, but rather the poor implementation, cheap price, cheap quality and no support.
Like James, I provide support, and an alternative to the cheap "eBay no-support cheap boards".
Mine are built on a tried-and-true chip, we've got 1000s of them out in the real world. All quality, name-brand components. PCB made here in the USA.
Take a look: HobbyCNC.com.
BrianV

Thanks Brian.

The HobbyCNC is an SLA based driver? We used to sell a SLA 7062 based driver kit:
www.piclist.com/techref/io/stepper/SLAm/SLAm_bld.htm
but discontinued it because 1. We couldn't find a reliable source for the chips, 2. So many people were hung up on bipolar vs the SLA's unipolar drive (for the record, unipolar works just freaking fine) and 3. we wanted to focus on the newer THB6064AH chip. You know, shiny... new... "oh, let's try that!" But the SLA's work really well.

Why do you put them all on one PCB instead of doing a single driver per board? Just out of curiosity... I can see advantages either way, just wondering what made you go in that direction. Avoiding cables?

[WoodWorkerB]

I actually purchased the company from the previous owner who was retiring. I've used the product for 5+ years now and I was delighted as a customer.
Seemed a shame to let the product just 'go away'. It has a long history (1999) when it started as a board for RC aircraft modelers wanting to do foam cutting (4 axis required).
Just sorta evolved from there. The single board approach just seems easier from a wiring perspective (every little bit helps) and most applications require 3 or 4 axis. Also, no BOB required.
I think the single axis approach is particularly nice for those 'eBay boards' that have a tendency to crap-out - then you just replace the bad axis. The SLA chips seem to run for-freakin-ever.
It's a simple board, easy to build and it is rock-solid. My daddy also used to say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
BrianV

[A_Camera]

I generally agree with A_Camera, but there is one minor correction I have to make here: The TB6560 is NOT a bad chip. It works very well and at a very good cost when used as specified in the data sheet. Specifically, it MUST have logic power (+5 volts) BEFORE motor power when starting. The problem comes when every single Chinese driver using the chip derives logic power from motor power with a regulator chain: 7812 to 7805. This means that the logic power ALWAYS comes up AFTER the motor power. And that is a weakness in the TB6560. It was never intended for that use... it was to be used in printers and fax machines and so on where the power up sequence could be carefully controlled as part of the overall system design. Using it in a stand alone driver is the fault of the Chinese entirely.

Toshiba makes good chips, when used as per the datasheet. The THB6064AH is a great chip, which doesn't have that issue.

Lot's of people have had good luck with the DQ542MA drivers... they seem to be pretty good. I'd love to have someone test my THB6064AH driver against a DQ542MA...

Toshiba no longer makes the 6560 because they have also realized that the chip is buggy. No matter what you do, a driver with a TB6560 will ALWAYS cause some kind of problems. Yes, the implementation can be done better than in the blue card, but there is a limit. The very fact that Toshiba states that the logic power must be turned on before motor power and turned off (in reverse) AFTER the motor power, otherwise you risk blowing the chip clearly indicates that there is actually a bug in the hardware. It should have internal protection against this and all that should be internal in the chip because in the end you can't really guarantee that you always can follow this requirement, unless you have a battery backup on your logic voltage. The reason is that if you have a total power loss due to sudden mains supply loss then you will not be able to turn off +5V after the motor voltage, everything will drop at the same time. OK, you can have a large capacitor before the 5V regulator to keep the 5V up for a while, but come on... that's patching out the bugs in my world. The problem is not that the 5V regulator is connected in series with a 12V regulator, that would not matter, because even if you add a separate 5V supply, eventually you will blow up your driver anyway, just like I did. It is only a matter of time, unless you make a complicated patch solution to follow the Toshiba power on/power off requirements.

No doubt that the TB6560 is a crappy chip in itself, that's why Toshiba stopped making it and release a new chip to replace it. But of course, bad implementation doesn't improve the situation... I read the TB6560 datasheet, all pages forward and backward and across several times and "managed" to fix my card as much as humanly possible, used separate +5V supply and manually managed the switching but then one day the power went in my home and one of the chips blew up. I fixed my second blue card, but eventually even that one blew up for the same reason. I have 5 brand new and unused TB6560 chips but not bothered changing the chip, bought DQ542MA drivers and never looked back. The unused TB6560 chips are never going to be used...

[A_Camera]

I agree, don't blame the chip, but rather the poor implementation, cheap price, cheap quality and no support.

Well, I don't agree. There is no need to defend Toshiba for this chip, it is crappy and that's a fact and they know it, that's why they have removed it from the market. Of course, the implementation in the blue card is also crappy, but one wrong doesn't make the other right.

[WoodWorkerB]

... used separate +5V supply and manually managed the switching but then one day the power went in my home and one of the chips blew up. I fixed my second blue card, but eventually even that one blew up for the same reason. I have 5 brand new and unused TB6560 chips but not bothered changing the chip, bought DQ542MA drivers and never looked back. The unused TB6560 chips are never going to be used...

Yikes! Yeah, that ain't very user friendly.

[James Newton]

The SLA chips seem to run for-freakin-ever. It's a simple board, easy to build and it is rock-solid. My daddy also used to say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
BrianV

Can't argue with that!

[James Newton]

The very fact that Toshiba states that the logic power must be turned on before motor power and turned off (in reverse) AFTER the motor power, otherwise you risk blowing the chip clearly indicates that there is actually a bug in the hardware.

Ok... I say "has a weakness" you say "actually a bug". We agree far more than we don't. In the end, the message is clear: "Do NOT buy TB6560 drivers!" LOL.

[A_Camera]

Yikes! Yeah, that ain't very user friendly.

Well, I was considering to make an automatic solution, but then I realized that no matter what I will do, I will NEVER be happy with that card AND the chip, so I decided to have the manual solution as long as it takes for me to solve it better, using three individual separate drivers. There is no way to get rid of some of the issues of the 6560, apart from the power on/of sequence there are many other issues with that chip which can be handled right or is extremely complicated to solve compared with replacing the card with a better one. Some examples are that the card is VERY slow even with the proper CLK capacitor, there is no way to get rid of the hissing noise when the motors are holding, holding current handling is wrong and not really working. I spend countless number of hours in basically redesigning and rebuilding that card but in the end it was still very bad compared with the DQ542MA. The differences are like day and night, really plug and play and extremely well performing, never heating up, very fast and quiet, very smooth running and everything I can think of is better.

- - - Updated - - -

Ok... I say "has a weakness" you say "actually a bug". We agree far more than we don't. In the end, the message is clear: "Do NOT buy TB6560 drivers!" LOL.

Definitely agree.

[Jon.N.CNC]

What makes you so sure you had a Toshiba chip, 70% of the tb chips are counterfeit.

Not that the genuine ones are much better. MOSFETs all the way

[A_Camera]

What makes you so sure you had a Toshiba chip, 70% of the tb chips are counterfeit.

Not that the genuine ones are much better. MOSFETs all the way

I have no idea if you are asking me or somebody else, but it doesn't really matter.

I am not sure about that counterfeit chips exist at all. In fact, Toshiba flooded the market with these chips, they were VERY cheap especially in volumes, but even individually, so why would anyone invest a huge amount of money to try to pirate these? I think it is far fetched, but never the less, there is no way of knowing from the outside if the chip is fake or real. The only thing I know is that they look EXACTLY like the ones I received from Toshiba but I did not bother to use for replacing my blown up ones with, so the Toshiba originals are still in the tube and probably will stay there forever. Anyway, a visual inspection does not reveal any differences, so I am pretty sure my six chips on the two blue cards I have are as original as they can be. Remember that even manufacturing fake chips is pretty complicated and expensive, and I really doubt it is done at all.