Newbie- NEED HELP! with new driver board config

[Stinkfisst]

Hello all I just purchased a new 5 axis driver board and 3 stepper motors off ebay. I have been having problems getting my driver board setup. The instructions that came with the board seem very vague but from what I have read I hook everything up the way it should be but no motor movement. I'm using Mach3 and I configured my pins and ports but still nothing. Could someone please help me this is the first time doing this. The driver board is 5 axis and uses TB6560AHQ chip, the motors I have are 6 wire nema 23 and the power supply i have is 12V @ 12.5 amps I'm sure I have done everything properly I even watched you tube videos of the same board and others have had success but I have not. Please if someone could help me maybe there is something in Mach 3 I am forgetting to do. Thanks

[Torchhead]

One of the things I tell first time builders is to FIRST download the manual and see if it has enough information to hook it up with the PC and software they want to use. Then think long and hard about how much support you think you can get if there is no phone number or active support forum.

12V will give you dismal performance even when you get it working. 12.5A is way overkill for even 5 axis. You get RPM on a stepper from volts. The drive (should) limit the current for each pulse. The optimum voltage is largely dependent on the inductance of the steppers. Older and smaller steppers tend to have higher inductance so their target voltage is higher. A loose rule of thumb is to supply from 15 to 20 times the rated motor volts for good RPM. Often that is many times 12V. Sometimes it's higher than the cheap stepper drives can handle.

Perhaps those persons that have had all of the success with making the product run in MACH could share their Profile (XML) with you?

You need to determine if the card has a "Enable" line and what signal it needs to run. If you can come out of reset and the DRO's in MACH are moving when you jog, then it's sending pulses out of the parallel port (if you let it install the parallel port driver when you loaded MACH). You then have to determine which pins your driver needs to run which axis and what polarity those signals need to be, There are numerous vendors that provide a MACH "profile" (XML setup) files with their cards that give you a better shot at not having to spend many hours finding the right combo of pins.

The bitter taste of poor performance and bad support lingers long after the sweet taste of low cost dissipates

TOM Caudle
www.CandCNC.com