Can you mix differential and single ended motors? (Scout and Acorn6)) <Answered>

[713cnc]

Hello,
My XYZ axes are differential steppers and work fine using the scout board.
I wired up the A and C axis with generic 2 phase steppers and gecko G203V drive to the Step, dir, and gnd of axis 5 and 6 on H3. I did not connect the disable pin on the acorn for debugging purposes.
The geckos have their own 24V power supply and their green light turns on. The steppers are correctly holding when no command is issued. The gecko requires 2.3V, 3.3V or 5V steps.
When I probe directly between the acorn6's axis 5 step and GND (H3), the output is a measly (and very noisy) 0.5-0.75V. So the motors don't turn.

Finally the question: does using a scout board mean you can no longer use the standard motor connections on the Acorn6? Or do I have some grounding issue somewhere?

Thank you for your eventual help,
Chris

[eng199]

H3 has open collector outputs, so you would need pull up resistors. For 5V signals, it is better to use H13 which has push-pull drivers.

The expansion board outputs can be used along with the other outputs.

[713cnc]

Eng199,
H13 worked perfectly! Thank you so much!

[cnckeith]

Eng199,
H13 worked perfectly! Thank you so much!

thanks for reporting back. post some photos!

[713cnc]

Trunion bench test:

[cnckeith]

nice! great collection. impressive build. love the vfd in its own box.
what are you going to make with this machine?