+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 9 of 9

Thread: what *other* reasons can there be for a stepper motor to shake about randomly?

  1. #1
    dazzlepecs Newbie
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Posts
    30

    Default what *other* reasons can there be for a stepper motor to shake about randomly?

    I am using a JSmotor-a driver board for a 103H546-0440 stepper motor.. I have gone over the wiring several hundred times to make sure its right, even so far as to go through the whole sequence of wire possibilities :P The documentation for the driver board shows what colours for this brand of motor as well.

    Symptoms are:- When clocking the "clk A" (as per instructions) the motors just cruch around in a random order rather than turning in one direction... it does hold steady when not clocked so at least thats something

    what else could be going wrong? The driver board is working fine as i have two and have swapped them in and out... I tried testing the activation sequence but im not sure how to do this...


  2. #2
    Leftyretro Excellent Leftyretro Excellent Leftyretro Excellent Leftyretro Excellent
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Hercules, California
    Posts
    1,420

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by dazzlepecs View Post
    I am using a JSmotor-a driver board for a 103H546-0440 stepper motor.. I have gone over the wiring several hundred times to make sure its right, even so far as to go through the whole sequence of wire possibilities :P The documentation for the driver board shows what colours for this brand of motor as well.

    Symptoms are:- When clocking the "clk A" (as per instructions) the motors just cruch around in a random order rather than turning in one direction... it does hold steady when not clocked so at least thats something

    what else could be going wrong? The driver board is working fine as i have two and have swapped them in and out... I tried testing the activation sequence but im not sure how to do this...
    Well one check you could make, if you haven't, is to measure the resistance of each of the windings to see if you have a open winding.

    Lefty
    Measurement changes behavior

  3. #3
    crutschow Excellent crutschow Excellent crutschow Excellent crutschow Excellent crutschow Excellent crutschow Excellent
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    2,947

    Default

    Is the clocking frequency within the normal operating range of the motor and load?
    Carl
    Curmudgeon Elektroniker

  4. #4
    picbits Excellent picbits Excellent picbits Excellent picbits Excellent picbits Excellent
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Northants, United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,160

    Default

    Don't rely on the colour codes of the motor to be correct.

    If you have a phase back to front or you drive the motor in the wrong step sequence it will do what you are describing.

    If its a bipolar motor, try swapping over a phase.

  5. #5
    dazzlepecs Newbie
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Posts
    30

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Leftyretro View Post
    Well one check you could make, if you haven't, is to measure the resistance of each of the windings to see if you have a open winding.

    Lefty
    yeah thats a good idea, i checked that already though, its all in order AFAIK

    Quote Originally Posted by crutschow View Post
    Is the clocking frequency within the normal operating range of the motor and load?
    it didnt specify actually, thats a good point.. I was clocking at maybe 1hz just to test

    Quote Originally Posted by picbits View Post
    Don't rely on the colour codes of the motor to be correct.

    If you have a phase back to front or you drive the motor in the wrong step sequence it will do what you are describing.

    If its a bipolar motor, try swapping over a phase.
    im not quite sure what swapping over a phase means ill have to research that.. Thanks for the idea!


    edit- arg, seems to be a unipolar motor
    Last edited by dazzlepecs; 27th January 2009 at 12:54 PM.

  6. #6
    picbits Excellent picbits Excellent picbits Excellent picbits Excellent picbits Excellent
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Northants, United Kingdom
    Posts
    1,160

    Default

    Unipolar motors can be almost as easy to diagnose.

    Measure the resistance from each phase and make sure you have the right wire for the common. Orange to white should give you the same resistance (give or take a bit of an ohm or so) as the white to blue wire. Same again with the red to black and yellow to black wires.

    That only leaves you with 4 wires to incorrectly connect

    You won't break anything by trying different combinations of those wires.

    Something else you might want to try is to put an LED between each phase and ground or live depending on how you're driving the common and obviously with a current limiting resistor. That way you can watch which phase is activated and compare it with the step chart in the datasheet.

  7. #7
    dazzlepecs Newbie
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Posts
    30

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by picbits View Post
    Unipolar motors can be almost as easy to diagnose.

    Measure the resistance from each phase and make sure you have the right wire for the common. Orange to white should give you the same resistance (give or take a bit of an ohm or so) as the white to blue wire. Same again with the red to black and yellow to black wires.

    That only leaves you with 4 wires to incorrectly connect

    You won't break anything by trying different combinations of those wires.

    Something else you might want to try is to put an LED between each phase and ground or live depending on how you're driving the common and obviously with a current limiting resistor. That way you can watch which phase is activated and compare it with the step chart in the datasheet.
    ive gone through the possible combinations.. that was a pain in the arse!!!


    Yeah watching the activation sequence is only thing left to do thanks

  8. #8
    Super Moderator Nigel Goodwin Excellent Nigel Goodwin Excellent Nigel Goodwin Excellent Nigel Goodwin Excellent Nigel Goodwin Excellent Nigel Goodwin Excellent Nigel Goodwin Excellent Nigel Goodwin Excellent Nigel Goodwin Excellent Nigel Goodwin Excellent Nigel Goodwin Excellent
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Derbyshire, UK
    Posts
    29,736

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by dazzlepecs View Post
    ive gone through the possible combinations.. that was a pain in the arse!!!
    There's only four required, and four to rotate the other way.
    PIC programmer software, and PIC Tutorials at:
    http://www.winpicprog.co.uk

  9. #9
    AlainB Okay
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Montreal, Canada
    Posts
    127

    Default

    Hi,

    One *other* reasons for a stepper motor to shake about randomly would be to have mistakenly swap the step (clk) and direction (dir) input sequences.

    Once you are sure of the rotation sequence of the motor, in your case orange-red-blue-yellow, the black and white tied together to the positive side of the power source and since you know that the driver is good, the problem could be at the input side: swaped step and dir wires or a software pin assignation problem.

    As stated before, using LED really help to find out what is going on.

    Alain
    Attached Images
    Last edited by AlainB; 31st January 2009 at 01:34 PM.

+ Reply to Thread

Similar Threads

  1. stepper motor or Torque motor
    By yagtoby in forum Electronic Projects Design/Ideas/Reviews
    Replies: 1
    Latest: 14th June 2008, 05:29 PM
  2. Stepper Motor Vs DC Motor for wheels
    By AceOfHearts in forum Robotics Chat
    Replies: 5
    Latest: 25th May 2008, 04:16 PM
  3. Shake Flashlight?
    By HarveyH42 in forum Electronic Projects Design/Ideas/Reviews
    Replies: 6
    Latest: 6th March 2008, 04:47 AM
  4. Help randomly lighting two different LED's...
    By Flyingmonkeyc in forum Electronic Projects Design/Ideas/Reviews
    Replies: 18
    Latest: 8th February 2006, 09:06 PM
  5. Other reasons for parallel resistors
    By pandaemonium in forum General Electronics Chat
    Replies: 18
    Latest: 23rd December 2004, 08:43 AM

Tags for this Thread