ROUTOUT CNC / ROUTOUTCNC Driver Wanted

[Mxml]

Hi,

I'm in need of a single routout cnc 2.5A stepper driver. I blew mine by wiring up a stepper incorrectly. Does anyone have one going spare?

Thanks!

[JohnHaine]

I think these are A4988 based and equivalents are widely available, for example:

https://www.pololu.com/product/1182

or

https://thepihut.com/products/a4988-stepper-motor-driver-carrier-black-edition

There are also nearly identical boards with more recent driver chips such as the DRV8825:

https://www.pololu.com/product/2133

...and I have bought those from UK stockists.

[Mxml]

Thanks for the response. I think those look good but don’t have enough juice for steppers I have. My steppers run at 4.2A at 1.6V:
https://cnc4you.co.uk/resources/Stepper%20Motor%20Nema%2023%2057HS64-3008%201.5Nm.pdf

Your point does open up the question of why I am looking for a routoutcnc driver specifically, and the answer is that I’m playing it safe because I have limited knowledge and limited cash to experiment with. I have a routoutcnc BoB and the routoutcnc drivers attach neatly with screw terminals to pins on the BoB, and I know that they will work together. However, the routoutcnc drivers are in fact underpowered for my new steppers and ideally I'd get beefier drivers.

If you or anyone else could help me understand whether I could use a different, more powerful and more mass-produced driver with my steppers and BoB I’d be very grateful.

This is the routoutcnc driver’s specs:
https://www.tiggyengineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2-5ampdriver.pdf

Routoutcnc Breakout Board:
31880

Routoutcnc driver:
31879

As you can see the driver has 8 screw terminals that connect to the BoB:
GND, +VE, 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, STEP, DIR, EN, GND

Ideally I’d use something like this, which is capable of 4A of current:
https://wiki.dfrobot.com/TB6600_Stepper_Motor_Driver_SKU__DRI0043

The TB6600 driver has screw terminals labeled:
VND, VCC, A+, A-, B+, B-, EN-, EN+, DIR-, DIR+, PUL-, PUL+

Could I wire the TB6600 to the routoutcnc BoB, even though the screw terminals are labeled differently, and the TB6600 has more of them?

Any help appreciated!

[JohnHaine]

I stongly advise you not to use TB6600 based drivers, it is an old chip design and they have a poor reputation for reliability. There are loads of more modern drivers available with similar ratings, I suggest you look at something like this, also from CNC4YOU:

https://www.cnc4you.co.uk/Microstepping-Driver/Stepper-Motor-Driver-4.5A,-50V-CNC-Microstepping-CW5045

The only difference in labelling really is that they bring out both sides of the opto-isolated inputs, you just ground the side labelled "-" on each.

[Mxml]

Ok thank you for the advice.

[Mxml]

The only difference in labelling really is that they bring out both sides of the opto-isolated inputs, you just ground the side labelled "-" on each.

Could I bother you with one more question on this. Looking at the wiring diagram for the CNC4YOU driver you linked (https://cnc4you.co.uk/resources/CW5045.pdf), the driver connects to a controller with four terminals: VCC, SIGNAL, DIR SIGNAL, ENABLE SIGNAL.

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As mentioned, mine are labeled differently (STEP, DIR, EN, GND). I'm concerned by the difference between the diagram's VCC to my controller's GND. You mentioned "you just ground the side labelled "-" on each" but the diagram shows the -'s connected to the controller's SIGNAL, DIR and ENABLE terminals, and the +'s connected to the VCC terminal. Should I be worried that connecting the driver to my controller's GND terminal would not to the same thing as connecting it to a VCC terminal as shown in the diagram?

Sorry to drag this out, I really appreciate your help.

[JohnHaine]

So the CNC4YOU diagram assumes "open collector" outputs on the controller. The driver has opto isolators on each input, with an LED that illuminates a photodiode so there is complete "galvanic" isolation between the inputs and the internal circuitry. Each LED has a 270R current limiting resistor as well as potentially another series resistor R which may be needed with higher values of Vcc as shown in the table.

Your controller seems to have +5v logic outputs rather than open-collector judging by the spec of the routout stepper driver - do you have a spec for the controller itself? Assuming that I'm right, the BoB outputs should go to the + side of the driver inputs rather than that being connected to Vcc, and the - sides should be grounded to your BoB ground. You should not need a Vcc connection between the BoB and the driver since this is derived internally.

You may find that the logic levels are now inverted in which case you will need to fix them in config.

[Mxml]

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me. I had a look around and though it's no longer online, I found an archived webpage and PDF using the wayback machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200211234518/https://www.routoutcnc.com/mainboard.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20200923102644/https://routoutcnc.com/motherboard.pdf

It says that it has a maximum logic input of 5V but doesn't say anything about the output. However, if you look at these specs along with the specs of the associated driver board it says the following MAX values (https://www.tiggyengineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2-5ampdriver.pdf) :
Input Voltage 30 Volts DC
· Logic Input :
Step / Direction / Enable Voltage
Logic High Min 2.9 MAX 5 V
Logic Low MAX 1.5 V

[JohnHaine]

Quite. That's why I said what I did.

[Mxml]

Thanks for your help. Will give it a go :)

[Mxml]

Hi John, I’ve wired everything up but the stepper only moves in one direction. The BoB remains unchanged, the pulse/rev matches the BoB at 1600, stepper current is just under the stepper’s rated current, and logic voltage is 5v. Any ideas? Thanks

[Mxml]

In case it is to do with the DIR circuit, when jogging in the direction that does work (-X), the DIR pin is reading 5Vdc on my multimeter. When I jog in the other direction, which doesn’t move the stepper at all, I’m getting a reading of 45mV.

[JohnHaine]

If you can in the controller (Mach3? ) try changing the sense of the step pulses in configuration.

[Mxml]

Figured it out - In Mach3 config > Port and Pins I had to tick Step Low Active... At that point the stepper was running at normal speed in one direction and really slowly in the other direction. Then realised I had incorrectly wired a ground needed by the routoutcnc motherboard (BoB). The motherboard has two GND pins and I was grounding one only (the wrong one). I switched it to the other GND and everything started working.

Thanks again for your help :)

This is a Routout cnc motherboard V2.1 and a Stepperonline DM542T driver and CNC4YOU 1.5Nm Nema23, on a Denford Novamill running Mach3 via a UC100 motion controller. I am using a stepper online 36V 400W power supply. The routout cnc motherboard is still powering the Y and Z axes - the new setup is currently for the X axis only.

31889

[JohnHaine]

Coincidentally I'm using DM542 drivers and UC100 on my Novamill. Glad you're now in business.

[Mxml]

Ha no way! Yeah I love my novamill. I bought it for 1650 quid a few years ago, it was a high price but was in good nick, converted to Mach3 already and included the computer, tooling etc. Ever since I started using it it would occasionally skips steps on the X and Y and destroy my work, so I recently upgraded the steppers to those 1.5Nm ones and subsequently blew my driver. If all works out now I will fall back in love with it. I saw one on eBay the other day for 1000 quid buy it now - was tempted to get one and just replace the big black box with an Xpro V5 (https://makerstore.co.uk/products/xpro-v5-motion-control-system). The only confusing thing would have been figuring out the spindle control, as it would need to be done with a physical switch and pot rather than any VFD tomfoolery... or at least that is beyond me. Also, why on earth would I need two mills.

[Mxml]

Actually one last question now I know you about your machine - if you have the original Z stepper, (mine's original, HY200 3424 0310) how many amps are you running it at? I know they are rated for 3.1A but whoever converted my novamill to mach3 set the driver at around 1.5A, even though s/he had 2.5A available, and I'm wondering if there's a good reason for that.

[JohnHaine]

Actually I can't remember! Must be written down somewhere but not sure which notebook. 2.5A sounds fine if you can.

[Mxml]

Thanks

[magicniner]

I upgraded an old 12v Routout CNC 3 axis box to 4 axis around 10 years ago, the signals are there to run other stepper drivers but after experimenting with some cheap drivers I was lucky enough to get the last new old stock matching board from Routout CNC.
If I found myself in the same situation again I would use a modern buffered breakout board (the Routout CNC breakout board provides no electrical protection either way) an decent drivers as the cost would not amount to much and the results would be far better than the original, the original box is still working for the gentleman who bought my desktop mill around 5 years ago but even he has seen the shortcomings of the low power output and is upgrading to a modern self-build box.

[Mxml]

Interesting. The routoutcnc guy is still around, and he said that he would soon have a new batch of the drivers in stock. In the meantime I bought a new DM542T driver and wired it in for my X axis. Tested it and was still losing steps on the Y so decided to order another DM542T for the Y and wired it in yesterday. The whole thing taken quite a lot of moving things around in the big black control box, and troubleshooting and head scratching and even now I’m faced with issues (in Mach3, I think). I definitely see the benefit in just going with the routoutcnc driver that just screws in, but the max current of 2.5A coupled with me not knowing the origin of the lost steps issue pushed me in the direction of a new driver. Hopefully I can get it working, if not then I’ll replace the BoB and get another driver for the Z.

[magicniner]

the max current of 2.5A coupled with me not knowing the origin of the lost steps issue pushed me in the direction of a new driver.

I had a lost steps issue with the Routout CNC box, it turned out to be EMF from the spindle drive, I replaced the DC spindle motor and driver but if I'd known it at the time Twisted Pair wiring for the limit/home switches and stepper motors might have solved the issue.

[Mxml]

Oh nice tip, thanks. I don’t have limit/home switches but could twist the stepper wires into pairs. If it persists then I’ll give it a go.

Right now I’m battling a new issue - as soon as I had the X and Y axes wired up and working, mach3 decides to begin acting strangely (will jog fine, but will not move these axes when running Gcode). At first I though it HAD to be something to do with how I had wired it up as that was the only change, but my mach3 profile works fine with on another computer I tested. Almost finished… hopefully.