How much power does your stepper motor need?

Follow me on Twitter! eddietheengr
Files from this video: github.com/eddietheengineer/documentation/tree/master/stepper_motor/RidenPowerSupplyVideo
EEVBlog Review of Riden PSU: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZqLNfauVfdh-i7M
Riden Bench Power Supply RD6006: www.aliexpress.com/item/2255800096237178.html
University of Texas Stepper Dyno Project: www.hackster.io/motor-torque-test-bench-team/dynamometer-for-stepper-motors-84864e

[@eddietheengineer]

Found out that I was adjusting the wrong stepper current during the sweep--that power plot looked too clean! I've updated the charts in the tweet below, and will update the data on github when I have it completed. twitter.com/eddietheengr/status/1533525640175095809?s=20&t=xbhAz1xDDWHQeCrJK8GB6A

[@ZURAD]

This is exactly the kind of work that needs to get done in the 3D printing world. People have not been asking the basic questions like you are. Keep it up!

[@eddietheengineer]

Thank you for your kind words!

[@RazorSkinned86]

personally i've found that on TMC stepper drivers changing the driver_PWM_GRAD from the default of 4 to instead something like 10 has the biggest improvement on performance. the factory default from TMC is set really low because they don't know what kind of capacitance will be available but if you mainboard has decent sized caps used then you can set it to 10 with no issues. maxing the PWM_GRAD had a bigger improvement on performance than 48V or using bigger stepper motors because with something like a core-xy printer the real bottleneck is how aggressively the stepper driver ramps up the current while accelerating. at the default setting corexy printers start skipping steps when you set the acceleration for moves to something like 20000.

[@eddietheengineer]

That’s a great point and I’ll have to try that out! I want to see how settings like that affect performance

[@95LegendGS]

In the klipper docs it seems to indicate the default value for PWM_GRAD is 14 for tmc2209 and 2208 drivers but it commented out. Only on the tmc2130 does it show 4 as the value.

[@SergeiLepiavka]

Amazing content! I've been binge watching your channel all week.

[@timha4102]

Thank you! I was not able to find out which power supply to get for my two 48V steppers. Your video was the only source to show me that my planned 60W one would not have been enough.

[@eddietheengineer]

Glad that you found it helpful!

[@rmatveev]

What a wonderful review! Thank you for sharing this with the community!

[@harjoat]

Absolutely love your content, thank you so much for making it all!

[@lortunder]

Eddie! this is awesome! great job and great work !

[@educationalpurposesmostly]

I can't thank you enough had a buncha people telling me I needed a 250w power supply because they believed my motors took 2.5a each at 48v.

[@eddietheengineer]

That’s a common misconception! Glad it was useful 😄

[@tanaes]

Super awesome!

[@bloogaming8827]

This video is exactly what I was looking for! Like really spot on! I was just wondering what motors you’re using here?

[@eddietheengineer]

These were LDO 42STH48-2504AC!

[@stefanguiton]

Great videos as always! I was wondering if you considered using BLDC motors and Odrive on your Idex? In theory there wouldn't be any torque drop-off at higher RPMs

[@ldomotorsjason3488]

Great knowledge.

[@ChuckB86]

Thanks!

[@ucronotopia1988]

Good content! I always had a question: when using standard stepper motor driver (the ones that come with current configuration via dip switches) which current shall I use if i want to drive the motor to its maximum speed? Shall I use the nominal current show in the motor datasheet? Or use an average value between the nominal and the minimum the driver can support? Thanks i'm advance

[@Thomas0]

Thanks

excellent video... one note, with Patreon, if you like to do so, you can collect money per project basis, which, as I understand suits you better...

[@F1v30h1]

Can you put 48v to any stepper motor? I can not find any info on this…

[@solasauto]

How does autosensing work?

[@bradleydaniels9093]

What stepper motor was used?

[@cardosodouglas]

Since I'll be running a Fysetc Spider with TMC2226 would I have any kind of real power gain running my board at @28V? I'm assuming that the +/- 16% of overvoltage could result in some kind of gain but I'm not sure if it translate to a real use improvement.

[@eddietheengineer]

You could hit slightly higher speeds with a bit higher voltage! But the downside is that you'll be at the edge of what your control board/drivers are rated at. In general, I wouldn't recommend updating unless you can go all the way to 48V.

[@nirecue]

Let's GOOOOOOOO

[@randysonnicksen9475]

Hello Eddie. I was excited to hear you're obsessed with steppers, because I have a question you might be able to answer. I am using NEMA34 steppers in a project I'm working on, and I bought a knock-off (not Leadshine) DM556 stepper driver which has selectable stepper current via DIP switch settings ranging from 1.4A to 5.6A. My bi-polar motors are rated at 5.5 amps and have a coil winding resistance of 0.5 ohms. I have a lab power supply which can deliver up to 10 amps at 30 VDC. It does have a current limiting feature, but I have it turned all the way up, so current limiting will not engage. Here's my issue: No matter where I set the amperage DIP switches on the DM556 stepper driver, I don't get any change in the current from my power supply (it has a digital display for current), and I don't seem to get any changes in the motor torque. My thinking is that the stepper driver is junk. I have two brand new drivers, and both behave the same way. What do you think? (FYI, I've ordered a different brand driver to see if it does the same thing, but haven't received it yet.)

[@eddietheengineer]

This is an interesting problem! I assume the stepper driver is activated-what speed are you testing at? If it’s at a very high speed, it’s possible the backemf is so high that the actual current though the stepper windings doesn’t change since it’s limited by backemf instead of the current selection

[@randysonnicksen9475]

@@eddietheengineer I plan to borrow an oscilloscope and put a small resistance in series with the coils and measure the voltage across this resistance while the motor is running so that I can get a true picture of the current through the coil. This might also shed some light on how torque varies with speed. To answer your question (speed) I've tested at many different speeds. Slow, fast, stationary (but on). It doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

[@williamprimeee]

I would be insterested to see the results at 24v

[@adeo]

How would the results change with 24V instead of 48V? Would the power consumption be the same or lower? If lower, by how much?

[@eddietheengineer]

Yes! The power consumption drops a good deal, even at the same speeds. I have a few nice graphs where I’ve done a sweep of voltages and currents on the same motor to show the delta!

[@adeo]

@@eddietheengineer I've now seen them, thanks a lot for your research!

[@JamieHarveyJr]

How’s the stepper dyno coming? I’ve debated making one myself but I’d rather you spent your time and money and I’ll just give you the views 😂

[@eddietheengineer]

It’s coming along really well! I’ve been working on it the last 2 weeks and almost have the automated data collection/sequencing complete. Really excited to get lots of data soon!

[@JamieHarveyJr]

@@eddietheengineer happy to hear it! I’m excited to see you compare your calculator data to real world measurements. Also would love to see you cover stepper motor resonance! It unreal how many awesome motors have unreal resonances between 200-400 mm/s windows.

[@eddietheengineer]

@@JamieHarveyJr resonance/noise is definitely on my radar!

[@qozia1370]

You didn't varry the voltage!

[@celiturbo]

Is this evn about volts vs steppers or just a 6min ad for a junk chinese power supply? Edit: Don't waste your time, nothing useful here.

[@Killa_Prints]

Thanks!

[@alexsmsn]

Thanks

[@jtrmal]

Thanks!