Connect G 540 driver to 5 wire Sherline motors

[vguerrao]

Need advice of how to connect 5 wire stepper (Sherline) to 4 wire Gecko 540 driver. Should the center wire be left unconnected? or connected to ground?

Thanks

[jalessi]

Vguerrao,

The G540 is a bipolar driver, leave the center tap (black & white wires) unconnected.

Jeff...

[morestuff]

FULL STOP alert!!

The Sherline plug connects the center
of the two windings in the motor to the
same pin! This will probably kill the G540!

If you are using motors with the Sherline
plug still on the motor cable you must
disconnect the two center wires from
each other. Simply not connecting to
that pin on the plug is not sufficient.

Once you have the wires separated, then
you will have a choice of running the motors
as bipolar motors using the full windings or
as half winding by using one end and the
center tap of each winding, while the other
end of the winding is not connected. This
will usually be the preferred method because
it results in lower inductance (and thus
faster speeds) at no, or only a slight,
penalty in torque.

Regards,
Steve Stallings
PMDX.COM - Products for CNC and motion control applications

[jalessi]

Steve,

Spot on, your directions are much clearer.

Jeff...

[john_100]

Hi vguerrao ,

you need to be able to disconnect the four half coils from the common terminal / wire
and reconnect the four wires to form two seperate coils

if the motor has a 5 way connector , the windings are likely to soldered to a pcb
that makes it easy .

with 5 wires , it will depend on the common joint not being buried and being easy to rewire

I think I read some were , the rotor will be partly demagnetised if removed
I expect some one can confirm if it is true

John


p.s. eg picture of stepper motor pcb and 6 way connector

you may have to de-solder the pcb to gain access to the common wires

[Heinz Reimer]

The information you need is in the preceding posts, but having done what you are trying to do I thought I'd add a few comments.

The stock Sherline motors are six wire motors, with the center taps of each winding soldered to the center pin inside the five pin connector. A wiring diagram can be found here by clicking on the link to technical specifications. Sherline Stepper Motors

The Sherline motor inductance is a far better match for the G540 if used as half winding. To do this, referring to the diagram in the link, brown and black become one winding, red and white the other. Orange and yellow are left unconnected.

I started off by replacing the Sherline connectors with these similar four pin connectors Digi-Key - CP-1040-ND (Manufacturer - SD-40), but have since replaced those with the ones from DY engineering.D.Y. Engineering - NEMA23 Cover Kit

Regards
HR