HELP CHOOSE CONTROLLER

[gbama]

I have a low end 3 axis cnc i bought off ebay came with 3 stepper motors and TB6560 controller i havent seen any axis move since i procured it I have tried everything within my knowledge. Its extremely frustrating.

Any help or suggestion what controller to get appreciated.

[doorknob]

Can you provide a bit more info?

What power supply are you using?

What kind of cable are you running from your PC to the driver board?

What software do you have on your PC?

What type of stepper motors are in use?

How do you have the driver board wired?

What kind of electronic test equipment do you have access to?

[Torchhead]

Consider ending your frustration and buying a G540 Gecko 4 axis controller and a 6A to 10A 48VDC power supply. It runs with MACH3 (or EMC if you have more computer experience) and there are canned Profiles that setup all the pins for you. The Ebay based TB6560 motor drivers are pretty useless without making some "engineering" changes.

[gbama]

Originally Posted by doorknob Can you provide a bit more info? What power supply are you using? What kind of cable are you running from your PC to the driver board? What software do you have on your PC? What type of stepper motors are in use? How do you have the driver board wired? What kind of electronic test equipment do you have access to?

Power Supply = Potrans FS-15024-1m (Output 24V 6.5A)

DB25 Parallel cable from PC to board

Windows 7 (32 bit), MAch3

Motors= 2 Vexta Stepping PK 266-02A for z and y axis
1 Keling KL23H 267-30-8B for y axis


I have ordered the gecko 540, i suppose it will drive the cnc without driving me nuts. Torchhead and Doorknob thanks for your support

Connectors to board were done by seller claims to have been doing it for years.

[doorknob]

It may still be worthwhile doing some additional troubleshooting before you hook up the G540. For example, if you have a problem with your parallel port or your cable or the power supply, changing the driver will not fix it.

I am not a Mach3 user, but I understand that it has a series of diagnostic screens which may be of some assistance when used in conjunction with a voltmeter, logic probe, or oscilloscope. For example, after checking to make sure that the power supply output voltage is correct, you could focus on one motor at a time, attempting to manually step the motor while monitoring the voltages on the motor windings, and if you are not seeing what you expect, you could work backwards (for example, are you getting the expected step and direction signals for that axis from the parallel port and do they show the expected 5-volt signal levels, does the cable actually have straight-through connections for all of the pins, do you have a proper enable signal at the emergency power-off port, etc.).