I have a DDCS V4.1 controller connected to a DM556T driver connected to one Nema 17 stepper connected to the X axis on the breakout board. I believe I have it connected correctly, but when I turn it ON the arrow keys change the display but do not move the motor. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Recheck wiring, ohm out the stepper motor wire pairs and be sure the pairs are connected correctly, look at the enable signal to be sure it’s pulled high or low depending on what is required. check again that step and dir pins are also correct. make sure you have proper power to the driver board and make sure you have a ground wire going from your controller to your motor driver board(ie one common ground ).
I have rewired the DDCS V4.1 into a box. Here is a wiring diagram and some pics.
I have put it in a case. Here are some pics of the case. The inside of the case and front are shown here. The steppers will still not turn. The display seems fine. It acts normal. I can push the X+ X- and Y+ Y- and the screen shows the axis moving, but the motors don’t.
I can page through the menus and don’t see anything wrong, but I’m am not yet very educated on the menus. I have tested the stepper motors and run them on a test system and they work fine. I have replaced driver boards with nothing changing. It is very frustrating to be so close. I must be some little thing I’ve overlooked, but I can’t find anything.
I hope someone can see a problem or something I’m missing. I getting really frustrated. I suspects it’s some little thing I’m over looking, but I don’t know what. YOUR HELP IS GREATLY APPRECIATED.
Did you: “make sure you have a ground wire going from your controller to your motor driver board(ie one common ground ).”
If your hand drawing is correct you did not follow my recommendation.
Doug. My picture was not accurate. I checked and all negative supply lines go to the wall socket ground. I appreciate your help as I find no one else who knows anything about this controller on this site or on CNCZone. Here is another picture. It was before I wired the drivers to earth ground, but the wiring is as shown. I have been very careful and tried to be neat and correct.
Could it be the controller itself that has the motors turned OFF. If so, where might I check this. I really appreciate your contact. I am willing to contact you via email or phone if you think that would help. I could show you picture on my phone and follow you instructions. Your call.
You should take a look at and follow along with this thread of NEMA 23 motors and drivers because it goes over lots of wiring and testing scenarios.
But regarding your tieing the negative DC outputs of your power supplies to your chassis ‘wall socket’ ground, Do not do that. Some PS do have the negative output tied to chassis ground but many isolate the DC output from chassis ground becasue it will often inject noise into the system.
I can’t give you an education on what an electrical “circuit” is but know this, electricity needs a source and destination and electrical circuits are effectively a loop the energy flows through. So while you have high power DC power connected to your drivers to power the motors, the controller board has to send low voltage electrical signals to the controller to tell it what to do with the motor circuits. The signals emitted by the controller must have a path back to the controller board. Therefore, the negative power supply for the controller board should be electrically connected to the negative input power of the controller module so there is a “loop” / circuit for the electrical signals.
Another thing, it is not ‘best practices’ to daisy chain power wiring as you have done because you end up requiring 1 pair of wires to carry all power for all motors and each connection can also induce resistance and a voltage drop. It’s best to run 3 pairs of wires either from the main DC power supply or run large wires from the power supply to a couple of bus bars and then have the 3 pairs of wires go from the bus bars to each motor driver module.
Please look at the other thread on how those external motor drivers are wired. Turns out the ENA-/ENA+, DIR-/DIR+, PUL- and PUL+ are connected internally to photodiodes.
See this video on connecting up a controller board, an external stepper motor driver and a stepper motor. https://youtu.be/3LZ_v3Jldwo?si=s_4cKetgoh8yzFyu&t=341