11 hours of trying to get the motors to turn, help please

**Gary** · 03-02-2013

If the breakout board is the same as the ZP5Aint that we sell, then you have it connected to the drivers wrong.
There is no VCC on the breakout board and the step, direction and enable are buffered. (So they give a 5V pulse)
So lets take the X axis as an example.
Xn is GND so goes to all the negative sides of the the control inputs (PUL-, DIR- and ENA-).
The XD goes to Dir+, XS goes to PUL+ and XE goes to ENA+.
Also dont use USB to power the 5V, use an external power supply and put the selector switch to DC 5V

**Gary** · 03-02-2013

http://www.zappautomation.co.uk/en/a..._attachment=91

**Wotsit** · 03-02-2013

Originally Posted by Gary

Xn is GND so goes to all the negative sides of the the control inputs (PUL-, DIR- and ENA-).
The XD goes to Dir+, XS goes to PUL+ and XE goes to ENA+.

Thats just how i have connected it, i can see a constant voltage on the Dir pin though. I have also tried with a linear 5v psu and usb. I have ordered a new board from you via ebay.

**John S** · 03-02-2013

Is it the cheap Chinese board ?
If so post what pins you are using in Mach because these boards are all over the place

**Wotsit** · 04-02-2013

Got it sorted in the end, the step and direction pulse in the instructions for the breakout board are shown as 2us I needed to set them both to 4us to get the motors to run.

Thanks for your help.

**John S** · 04-02-2013

We always set to a minimum of 5us. half the boards out there are just not fast enough regardless or what they say.

sorry, never though to mention this, just do it automatically.

BTW mach says 0 - 5 us or 1 - 5us [ can't remember ] but it will accept a greater value. Sometimes have to go as high as 7 to get some of the spindle speed boards to output the full 10v.

**JAZZCNC** · 04-02-2013

Originally Posted by John S

sorry, never though to mention this, just do it automatically.

SNAP. . . But usually you get some motion just a bit erratic so I'm surprised at that.!! . . . I'd be suspicions of that BOB and it would have been obliterated against the wall by now anyway. .

**Shinobiwan** · 05-02-2013

Sorry to temporarily hijack your thread with a silly question but I have mine on 0us for both Step and Dir in the motor tuning and it works fine so far on my limited test runs. Is there any detriment to running 5us for both step and dir if its (apparently) not needed or is this a safety buffer? Trying to avoid headaches later on, got enough of those already, from incorrect settings.

**John S** · 05-02-2013

Direction pulse width doesn't seem to do anything, always leave it at 0
No detriment to running higher, a lot depends on the BOB and how good the opto's are