Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

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martyscncgarage
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by martyscncgarage »

DocsMachine wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 2:56 pm
cncman172 wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 9:54 am Most steppers have 200 Steps/Rev, however when you add micro-stepping you need to take that multiplier into account. When you have a driver that uses micro stepping you need to know where it is set. For example if it was set to 1/8 then you take 200 * 8 = 1600 steps/revolution. Some where you should find a little chart on the driver or a manual that tells you how to set the micro stepping using the little dip switches.
-Therein lies my problem. The motors I was sent are three phase, not four, so they're 1.2 degree, not 1.8 degree, which means they're 300 step/rev. No problem so far, except the drivers have a set of DIP switches on the side, and a chart silkscreened on the top, to set microstepping. They came set for, and are still set for, what the chart calls "default"- but it doesn't specify what "default" is.

The next setting down from that is 800 steps/rev, then 1600, so 'default' would logically be 400, right? Except these are 300 step/rev motors- meaning the machine travel will be about 1.3 times faster than intended.

But that doesn't make sense. These motors have encoders, so you'd think the drivers would "know" if the motor were 1.3 times out of position.

Then again, Marty's video, if I understand it correctly, suggested I should but in the encoder count number in the step/rev box in the Wizard, not the motor's inherent steps/rev.

Which is why I have to ask. :D Neither my motors nor my drivers are quite the same as the ones shown in Marty's video, despite the fact I ordered them straight from Automationtechnologies.com- they're close, but not quite.

If it helps, at the moment, I have the encoder number in the Wizard steps/rev box- that is, 4000. I have 15 as a turns ratio, since it's a 5TPI screw and a 3:1 belt reduction. When I jog it manually, the carriage moves roughly three times further than it should- the DRO shows something like 0.315" or so, while the carriage has actually moved about an inch.

I'm sure this is all terribly simple to those of you that have more experience than I do, but at the moment, it's kind of frustrating. :)

Doc.
In your case 300 steps x the microstepping value you setup onyour drive goes into STEPS/REV in the Wizard.
For example if you setup 10 mcrosteps, then 300x10(drive microstep value)=3000 step/rev.

The spreadsheet works, just change 1.8 to 1.2 in Deg/Step (I changed it in the screen shot)
Screenshot.jpg
Keep in mind the higher the steps/per, the lower your rapids become. Don't go NUTS with the microstepping.
Try using the 400KHZ Steps feature in Tab 4, if your drives will take it, you can increase your MAX RATE Settings. The software will bark at you if you try to go to high and set the max for you at a certain point.

Give that a go. Let us know if that helps.
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Dave_C
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by Dave_C »

Doc,

You've uncovered several questions so let's take them one at a time:

1. First I read (automation Technologies) and then I read another vendors name. Where did these drivers come from?

2. Did you get the motors and drivers from the same manufacturer?

3. The picture you posted does not look like either of the two closed loop steppers that automation technologies offers, theirs are black, not blue so we are dealing with something else here.

4. You mentioned your motors are 3 phase, so are the NEMA 23 motors from Automation Technologies and their NEMA 23 drivers have three dip switches but the manual says they are not doing anything right now so the steps per rev is set at 4,000.

IF you are moving three times farther than expected, cut the steps per rev back in the Acorn wizard and try it again. (divide by 3)

You may be confusing the steps per motor turn with steps per inch of travel like Mach 3 uses in its setup. Acorn ask how many pulses to turn the motor one turn and then ask "what is the gear ration" and then it does the math for you. (Marty, do I have that right?)

Even if your motors came from a different source you can tell if the driver will work. 3 phase drivers only have 3 motor wire terminals and the others have 4 wires. You can't interchange them!

So if the driver is 3 phase and the motor is 3 phase then we are off to a good start. The encoder is only used to track position of the motor! it does not do math internally to account for anything else. You get alarms if the motor can't track the incoming step pulses within a preset number of pulses and preset amount of time. Remember you drive faults when the drive went way too fast? It error-ed out as it could not move as fast as the pulses were coming in.

Those of you asking about the PEND outputs, that is what it is there for if you would have a system that can use it. Most of us will never need that output so leave it alone. When the motor is in position it is either open or closed but I think it can be programmed however you like.

That's enough for now, let's see where we are,

Dave C
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by DocsMachine »

martyscncgarage wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 3:26 pmIn your case 300 steps x the microstepping value you setup onyour drive goes into STEPS/REV in the Wizard. For example if you setup 10 mcrosteps, then 300x10(drive microstep value)=3000 step/rev.
-That's just it, I'm not given that option. The chart gives me a lit of steps per rev I can select from, and none are multiples of 300:

Image

I currently have the drives set for "default", whatever that means. I'm guessing- and it's only a guess- that doing by the chart means 400 steps per rev, although it seems odd that I'd be given 300 steps per rev motors and a 400 steps per rev driver.
The spreadsheet works, just change 1.8 to 1.2 in Deg/Step (I changed it in the screen shot)
-I know this was answered elsewhere, but as I don't have Excel, how can I open and use that spreadsheet?
Keep in mind the higher the steps/per, the lower your rapids become. Don't go NUTS with the microstepping.
-I'm not trying to, I wouldn't mind using full step and only full step at the moment, but something's not making sense here. Unless I'm missing something, I think I got the wrong drivers with these motors.

I mean, they work, and I suppose I could brute-force them with the turns ratio setting in the Wizard, but I'd really prefer to set them up properly.

Doc.
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by DocsMachine »

Dave_C wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 3:43 pm 1. First I read (automation Technologies) and then I read another vendors name. Where did these drivers come from?
-Automation Technologies NEMA 23 closed loop hybrid stepper kit. (They seem to be experiencing some database problems at the moment.)
2. Did you get the motors and drivers from the same manufacturer?
-Yes. I ordered two of their motor/driver kits.
3. The picture you posted does not look like either of the two closed loop steppers that automation technologies offers, theirs are black, not blue so we are dealing with something else here.
-I posted a photo of my driver, above. The blue driver photo was posted by somebody else.
4. You mentioned your motors are 3 phase, so are the NEMA 23 motors from Automation Technologies and their NEMA 23 drivers have three dip switches but the manual says they are not doing anything right now so the steps per rev is set at 4,000.
-My drivers have six DIP switches. I know the "motor direction reverse" switch works, but I have not tried any other combination.
IF you are moving three times farther than expected, cut the steps per rev back in the Acorn wizard and try it again. (divide by 3)
-As noted above, I had it set for 4000, going by my assumptions from Marty's video, which suggested the encoder count should be put in that box. Dividing that by 3 would give us 1333.3333~ which seems like an odd number to be using.
You may be confusing the steps per motor turn with steps per inch of travel like Mach 3 uses in its setup. Acorn ask how many pulses to turn the motor one turn and then ask "what is the gear ration" and then it does the math for you. (Marty, do I have that right?)
-No, I believe I have the Turns Ratio correct. I have a 5 TPI leadscrew (at least on the Z, which is what I'm focusing on at the moment) combined with a 3:1 belt reduction, and so I have 15 in the Wizard. The question appears to be what to tell the Wizard for a "pulses per rev".

I think. :D
Even if your motors came from a different source you can tell if the driver will work. 3 phase drivers only have 3 motor wire terminals and the others have 4 wires. You can't interchange them!
-If you look at the photo I just posted, the left-hand connector has two places for power in (GND and +VDC) and three for power out (U, V and W.) They're wired correctly, and they do work, I'm just trying to figure out what to tell the Wizard for a pulses-per-rev.

Doc.
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by Dave_C »

Doc,

Good Job! Your 5080H is a different version than the one I just received two weeks ago!

You only need to change switches 1-4 and I'd go with off-off-on-on selection and that will give you 3200 pulses per motor turn.

I agree, it looks like the default is 400 and all other choices are multiples of that. Go figure?

Switch 5 will reverse the direction and switch 6 is for a motor choice so don't change that one.

So it looks like motor and driver are matched! Just get the steps per turn right and it should work. 400 is way to course so try the 3200 or even 6400 but I'm thinking with the 3/1 ration gearing you don't need to go higher than the 3200 or maybe even 1600 steps per motor turn.

Let us know it that works, (great picture by the way) I'm also wondering if this encoder is a 100 line quadrature encoder rather than the 1,000 line as everything seems to be divisible by 400?

Dave C.
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by DocsMachine »

Dave_C wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 4:28 pm I agree, it looks like the default is 400 and all other choices are multiples of that. Go figure?
-That's what's throwing me. Keeping in mind I'm very new to all of this- steppers, drivers, CNC in general, electronics in general, etc. :D So I'm kind of in the "knows just enough to be dangerous" stage. :) I understand the concept of the encoders, I understand the concept of steppers- both, that is, from a mechanical standpoint.

What's throwing me is the ... uneven, I guess, aspect of this. It's a 300 step-per-rev motor, so given what I understand of microstepping, one would assume any new steps would need to be in a multiple of three. 300 steps, 600 half-steps, 1200 quarter-steps, etc. Or 300 steps, X5 would be 1500, X10 would be 3000, etc.

It seems to me- and I fully admit I might be entirely wrong on this- that microstepping not in even multiples of the motor poles would be ripe for error, since the driver would have to be constantly switching fractions- 1 step, 1.333 steps, 1.666 steps, 1 step, 1.333 steps, 1.666 steps, and so on.

I'm probably overthinking this, but hey, if we all learn a little something from it, it's all good. :)
Just get the steps per turn right and it should work. 400 is way to course so try the 3200 or even 6400 but I'm thinking with the 3/1 ration gearing you don't need to go higher than the 3200 or maybe even 1600 steps per motor turn.
-That's just it, I started out with (what we're assuming is) 400/rev, and that was far too slow. I don't recall what the DRO told me, but it was way off, and the fast jog speed probably didn't break 5 IPM.

Now 4,000 is too fast, by about two thirds. As I said above, I could just put in 1333.3333/rev in the Wizard and adjust the turns ratio from there, but is that right? That seems odd to me. And if it does work, is it only because the closed-loop drivers keep having to adjust and compensate? Would that be a problem?

Sorry, I'm an inquisitive type, I want to know these things. :)
I'm also wondering if this encoder is a 100 line quadrature encoder rather than the 1,000 line as everything seems to be divisible by 400?
-According to the documentation, it's a 1,000 line quadrature, for 4,000 pulses per rev.

Doc.
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by martyscncgarage »

Doc, from whom did you buy your drive?

Confusing matters is two users using the same thread to post their issues instead of starting their own.
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by Dave_C »

Confusing matters is two users using the same thread to post their issues instead of starting their own
Did I miss something here? All I see is Doc's issue with steps in this whole thread!

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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by DocsMachine »

martyscncgarage wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2017 8:50 pm Doc, from whom did you buy your drive?
-Straight from Automation Technologies.
Confusing matters is two users using the same thread to post their issues instead of starting their own.
-Um... This thread has pretty much just been me. Everyone else in here has been trying to help with the issue. :mrgreen:

Doc.
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by DocsMachine »

A thought- I may indeed be overthinking this. :D

I've been conflating the pulses sent to the driver, with the needed number of pulses sent to the motor, in order to produce a full revolution. IE, send one pulse to the driver, the driver sends one pulse to the motor.

But that's not the case, is it? If the driver is fractional-stepping, it is always "interpreting" those pulses, as set via the DIP switches. IE, if the driver senses 400 pulses, it knows, from the DIP settings, to make one half-stepped revolution rather than two full-step revolutions.

We have, I believe, something similar here with the encoder. The driver gets feedback from the encoder to "know" how far to turn, rather than just putting out X number of pulses. Again, if we send the driver 400 pulses, it "knows" to make one full revolution (here we're still assuming the 'default' setting is in fact 400 steps per rev), rather than the 1.3333~ revolutions the 3-pole motor would normally make.

In other words, I shouldn't worry about the signals being sent to the motor, the driver has that taken care of. I need to simply worry about the signals being sent to the driver. Therefore, I just need to go by the chart printed on the driver housing- 400 steps/rev, 800, 1600, etc.

I think. :)

Can anyone fault my logic here? I'm not quite convinced, personally, as I had the Wizard set for 4,000 pulses per rev, and at least as far as the DRO was concerned, it was "only" about 2/3rds fast, rather than ten times, if we're still assuming the 'default' mode is in fact 400 pulses/rev.

I need to play with some of the other settings on the driver, and see what I get...

Doc.
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