3-Axis Stepper Controller

[MP]

Did you over heat the UCN chip? You probably need to build one of the other designs if this is the case.

MP

[nikolaw]

Did you over heat the UCN chip? You probably need to build one of the other designs if this is the case.

MP

how do u men i over heat the UCN chip?

[MP]

The chip does not have a high watt rating. If you are using steppers that consume large amounts of energy, you could damage the chip.
What is the rating of your steppers? What is the rating of the power supply you used?

MP

[nikolaw]

The chip does not have a high watt rating. If you are using steppers that consume large amounts of energy, you could damage the chip.
What is the rating of your steppers? What is the rating of the power supply you used?

MP

I have a problem
I build another Bord but one chip broke again i use http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ih/doc/stepper/others/example2/
and PC power supply
What is the problem  ??? ??? ??? :'( :'( :'( :'(
How much Volts and Amperes i mast to use ???????
PLEASE HELP ME

[MP]

Nickolaw,
What are the symptoms of the fault? When you say it is not working, what is it doing? Have you checked the power supply? Has something burned on the board? If not, have you checked all settings in the software? Have you slowed down the steps to make sure the motor is not stalled? Have you checked the pulses coming from the board? If you use a slow stepper setting, you can use LEDs to check the stepping sequences. This is a useful tool as long as you step the motors slow enough to see the individual steps with the LEDs. Don't forget to add resistors so that you do not burn out the LEDs.

MP

[nikolaw]

Nickolaw,
What are the symptoms of the fault? When you say it is not working, what is it doing? Have you checked the power supply? Has something burned on the board? If not, have you checked all settings in the software? Have you slowed down the steps to make sure the motor is not stalled? Have you checked the pulses coming from the board? If you use a slow stepper setting, you can use LEDs to check the stepping sequences. This is a useful tool as long as you step the motors slow enough to see the individual steps with the LEDs. Don't forget to add resistors so that you do not burn out the LEDs.

MP

All is ok on board only one UCN5804 broke down and i replace that UCN whit another and everything i s ok bat what can burned UCN's i Use power pc suplly is this big supply?
should i use
1. small power supply (i mean in A and V)
2. or use fuse
3.how mach is max volts and amperes of power supply what I can use for this board

[MP]

The questions I posted are key questions to try and determine where the fault might be. Without answers to them, I really do not have a clue as to what is wrong.

The pc power supply has quite a bit more amperage than what you need, but the power supply does not cause this problem. Something is drawing too much current. The power supply is only obliging with what is requested of it. You should find out what is causing the excessive current draw. My guess would be that you have designed a stepper board that requires more current than the UCN chip is capable of running through it. If this is the case, you should scrap the idea and build a controller board that is capable of a few amps or more.
Perhaps you have chosen some wrong components that causes a draw. Can you post a drawing of your board? I tried to determine more from the pictures you posted, but they do not help for diagnostics. Post your board layout and description of parts you have used and we can try to determine if it is a component or too much current draw from the motors, etc.

MP

[thotrang]

All is ok on board only one UCN5804 broke down and i replace that UCN whit another and everything i s ok bat what can burned UCN's i Use power pc suplly is this big supply?
should i use
1. small power supply (i mean in A and V)
2. or use fuse
3.how mach is max volts and amperes of power supply what I can use for this board

You can post your schema in here then everyone can help something for your.
Best Rgds,

[fever16]

hello guys,
its a very good and nice thread for 3-axis cnc.
of course its a long thread of 22 pages (took me 1 whole day to read and understand) but iam able to solve my lot of doubts and questions.
thanks guys (spl. MP,nikolaw and GreekPIC... others too)

i saw lot of questions regarding the PCB layout.i think they arise bcz of the improper design software.the author shld have provided them in eagle etc format so that it will help while making the pcb.i'll be real thankful if some one could do that.(if someone has it already pls do post)

some of my doubts that need clarification:

1.in the below pic is that 5v regulator only?
2.how to connect home limit switches?
  if we use 3 limit switches for home then overall we need 6 switches. right?
3.i have some 5-6 wire stepper motors from old printers.how to know whats their  voltage rating.imean 12v or 24v etc

and has any one used this entire setup roughly?
i just want to know how efficient it is?

once again i want to thank all of u for providing some much info.

[dBlaza]

Hello guys and if there-s any girls :)
I'm in "maybe" little problem.

I've made circuit like in example for Optoisolated stepper motor controller.

It looks like this

and I took a stepper motor from the scanner which have this caracteristics

Items M42SP-7
Rated Voltage DC 12V
Working Voltage DC 10.8~13.2V
Rated Current/Phase 259mA 173mA
No. of Phase 4 Phase
Coil DC Resistance   50Ω/phase±7%
Step Angle   7.5º/step
Excitation Method 2-2 Phase excitation (Unipolar driving)

and have 5 wires which are> red, black, brown, yellow and orange

i've readed little bit about wireing of steppers and that the phases(wires) of stepper must be in some strict order
so I tryed and tryed and it doesn't work, everything that i can get out of stepper is that he vibrates or nothing.

ps i have winXPpro and parallel adress is 378 checked in bios and there is something about parallel port (ECC ...)

I'm sorry for my english,
and I hope that someone is going to help me about it

Thanks to all

[slikdig]

I've had a hard time finding UCN5804's recently. There either out of stock or exorbently expensive. Any suggestions on where to find them?

[timnlenoir]

Try this site out http://www.cncresource.com. I shearched their site and found them for $4.50. I have not ordered from them yet but will in a few days.

Here is the full link.

http://www.cncresource.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&manufacturers_id=4&products_id=6&zenid=71c00ef3ea67643309096144674745be

[steev]

exactly i too had hard time in finding those 5804 chip.
either no availability or too costly for a small CNC project.so i moved for pic based stepper controller(linistepper)

[new Kid]

Hi guys,

I am new to this field...and wanted to build cnc for hobby...i read the thread and was facinated by this machine can do...

i'm just wondering if any body have a pcb ready for soldering the parts and how much it is? and please advised for payment method and shipping. ???

I hope this forum still alive :-[

Thank you in advance  ;D

thanks

[nikolaw]

Hi guys,

I am new to this field...and wanted to build cnc for hobby...i read the thread and was facinated by this machine can do...

i'm just wondering if any body have a pcb ready for soldering the parts and how much it is? and please advised for payment method and shipping. ???

I hope this forum still alive :-[

Thank you in advance  ;D

thanks

Where are you from?

[GreekPIC]

1.in the below pic is that 5v regulator only?

There's a 7805 5V controller onboard. It can take 8-35V as an input (actually whatever voltage the steppers need) and output 5V for the UCN chips

2.how to connect home limit switches?
  if we use 3 limit switches for home then overall we need 6 switches. right?

Depending on the software you use, you can use NC or that as the switch being pressed and it will stop. You can spare some parallel port pins by wiring all three limit switches in series. The limit switches are no to be used on purpose like the home switches so you can live with that. If the machine hits a limit, you can visually check which axis it was.

3.i have some 5-6 wire stepper motors from old printers.how to know whats their  voltage rating.imean 12v or 24v etc

Now, that's hard. Google each and every marking, serial number or brandname you see on them and try to find a datasheet.

Nikolas

[nikolaw]

Where i can Bay online step motors?
can you tall me some web pages?????
thanks

[nikolaw]

heloow
i need step motors please help me

[GreekPIC]

Ebay, DigiKey, Mouser, RS...

[trunner]

Hello,

Sorry to bring this site back to life, but I think this will always be a active topic. does anyone have a copy of the files for the CW Technologies 3 Axis controller circuit? (layout, schematic, overlay etc...). All the sites that this forum points to are dead, and the internet archive has the sites but not the files:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030423082423/http://users.auth.gr/~mixos/projects/pcb/pc/015/index.htm

I can provide ether an email address of FTP site or email me. But if you have the files I will post them on my web server and put a link here.

-Jim

[trunner]

I found it by other means, as promissed here is the Plans, PCB, Layout, and diagram. I am currently working on an adapter board to make the StepGenie.com chip work instead of the 5804B (the 5804 is becomming harder and harder to find, the StepGenie is low cost and easy to find) Its a fairly simple change as the chips are so close. I will post the plans once that is done (if I ever get time).

http://www.akesons.com/cw-tech/index.htm
**I will host this for as long as I can**

[Hero999]

Thanks.

That's the trouble with linking to external sites.

I've zipped all the files and attached them to this post.

Unfortunately there's still no guarantee it will stay here forever, as attachments have been lost before when the site has crashed and been restored in the past.

If anyone has the files in better format,  i.e Kicad or Eagle format, please post them

3-axis_controller.zip