stepper motor cable

[Edendale]

i have a Chinese 9060 2.2kw router and i am having problems with the y axis losing steps occasionally, i thought i would replace the cable and wire it direct, could someone point me in the right direction on the cable to use please, regards mike

[Voicecoil]

Are you talking about the cable for the spindle? That ought to be screened, 4 core CY cable is the sort of stuff you want, though there are some more flexible types available at a bit of extra cost if that's an issue. Ground the screen solidly at the control cabinet/ VFD end, leave it floating at the spindle end to avoid earth currents.

[Edendale]

Hi, no it it’s the stepper motor cables I’m thinking about,, I’m losing steps occasionally mostly in the Y axis, it was something Dean (Jazzcnc) said about connecting the wires direct to cut down the problem, not sure if shielded cable is required for the motors, regards Mike.

[Doddy]

CY will work well for steppers as well (pretty good go-to cable for power drives). Shielded helps to avoid propagating noise into any limit switches that you have - it's no bad thing.

There's possibly other reasons for missed steps, however, so I wouldn't go balls-out with a full installation (assuming its a bugger to rewire) without testing a quick swap to see if it does resolve your problems.

[Voicecoil]

+1. Under what circumstances do you tend to lose steps? Iif you slow down the feed rate does the problem go away?