Microstepping steppers, and driving steppers with Raspberry Pi

Examining the microstepping capabilities of TB6600 and TB6560 stepper drivers. I have these hooked up directly to the GPIO lines of a Raspberry Pi 1 B+. The micro steps are not all the same size on account of nonlinearities in both the motor and the stepper drivers, though with the right combination of driver and motor, the micro steps are fairly even.

[@mindstorms44]

I literally watching this in awe! When I was 18 these things cost a fortune! Trying to get anything not of the same make to "talk" or communicate with another part was near impossible or practical,Its absolutely awsome that this is all available AND very cheap too.We have really come a long way in a short time,I bet there's some amazing things being built as I write this in peoples garages.so yeah bloodly brilliant and all youngsters should be balls deep into these things.

[@djordjeblaga7815]

Next up: CNC made out of wood and lego, accurate to 15/32 of a thou.

[@fmaz1952]

I'd buy (even collaborate to) that plan if it was a realistically doable project by the noob I am.

[@TheWoodsman87]

47/98

[@TheWoodsman87]

Why limit yourself to powers of 2

[@gregmislick1117]

@@TheWoodsman87 22/33

[@thoperSought]

@Fester Blats did you see the April Fool's video?

[@anthonyjobson]

Great micro step demo with the paper template!!!

[@ScottWalshWoodworking]

Interesting stuff! Good thing I'm an electrical engineering student! Not that one needs to be but this is clearly one of Matthias' more in depth videos.

[@Don.Challenger]

I believe his few videos requiring pocket holes are his true in depth numbers, but yes this comes micro close to those.

[@TheMijman]

@@Don.Challenger they can get quite complicated

[@faowff034faerf3490ur]

I hope that the fusion of woodworking and electrical engineering will be a very interesting topic.

[@NathanSalapat]

I really like your template explanation of how the stepper motors worked. I've wondered about that, but never cared enough to look into it. I've also never used one, so there was really no point to look into it. :)

[@RobClose]

2:47 - "...Smooth, but a bit jerky"... I have also been described as the same ;)

[@MikeJDelira]

Fascinating video, I learned a lot. I was confused by what your goals were in this experimentation, whether you wanted smooth motion, or sharp/consistent steps, or low noise, but the last line of video helped me understand "it's fun to experiment with." :)

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

The goal was to explain microstepping

[@breakinn403]

I don't know what you said but enjoyed hearing you say it ;o)

[@Shocker99]

He implicitly said that he doesn't know the theory or the logic reasons for why certain things happen/sound the way they do, where he's just got bought some kit and had a play.

[@TheRainHarvester]

The explanation with slips of paper with S N is highly effective and easy to produce! I made some stepper drivers with TI lmd18245 chips. They are beasts! I'll post a video link...

[@TheRainHarvester]

Here they are: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iYO7fnVjjauhhMk

[@TheRainHarvester]

Soldering a diy board for the chips: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aHqZmndrl9Osm7c These beasts handle 5A at 50 volts!

[@ajtxander]

I would love to see an article with the python code and a basic wiring diagram. I got my hands on an old, broken down office printer that I am hoping to pull lots of rods out of, and maybe some usable motors.

[@kaizellerhoff8233]

Ich hab zwar nur die Hälfte verstanden, weil mein englisch viel schlechter ist als dein deutsch. Aber ich schaue dein Videos trotzdem gerne an. Und bin immer wieder begeistert was du alles drauf hast. LG aus dem Oberallgäu.

[@Makebuildmodify]

Matthias do you have any write-ups on this topic on your website? Something like a "getting started" with stepper motors.

[@claws61821]

Interesting review. I've always read that micro stepping matched with whole step movements or continuous rotation is supposed to provide smoother motion. This suggests that's not necessarily the case.

[@ranke]

Thanks Matthias for this video! It will help me a lot tinkering with my stepper motors and my also old raspberry pi!

[@TechGorilla1987]

Just watched a video of a fella using steppers and a rotary encoder for live changing of a lead screw speed. He was advising that a TI Platform board is much better for live processing than even a pi. Interesting as always.

[@TheRainHarvester]

Tech Gorilla I saw that one too. I think the pi 's gpio bandwidth is probably the problem.

[@TheRainHarvester]

PS, even an Arduino is faster than a pi for raw gpio speed.

[@barryhollingshad2685]

i understand it and hope that your 3d routing and 3d printing come out more smoothly due to your smoothing out your stepper motors. Well done look forward to seeing more results.

[@n8theb]

The torque produced by a stepper motor is proportional to the current through the coils. Having a higher current setting will cause the rotor to accelerate and decelerate quicker, which will make it louder. Also, microsteps have less torque than full steps. If the stator's field differs from the rotor's by only half a microstep, the torque will be half what it would be if the fields differ by a full step. Smooth current sine waves produce smooth motion, but there are a number of things that can cause a stepper system to deviate from the ideal. Different drivers can use different sensing and switching algorithms to control the current. Also, the resistance and inductance of the stepper coils, and the voltage of the power supply all have effects on how easy it is for the driver to control the current.

[@afterthetone]

On my 3D printer, you need to set the hold current, which could tune out the hard notching. Have a play with ramps board the only cost a few £$ and can controls 5 steppers.

[@LeightonGill]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. Makes me want to go and dig around for my old RPi's.

[@paulwaldrop]

Nice,but I expected you to make the stepper motors yourself, with the pantorouter. 😀

[@DesignBuildExecute]

Matthias, when I was designing my DigiBox box joint controller, I found the BigEasy Driver to be a very smooth driver with little tuning in 1/16 microstepping. I'm controlling it with a PIC18F252 and some direct drive control code. When I dedicate the routine to just driving the motor and leave housekeeping routines for afterwards, I'm not seeing any missed steps.

[@wayne19922006]

I enjoyed this. I play around with the Arduino once in a while.

[@simonhopkins3867]

Same. And stepper motors from printers.

[@joshmonroe7166]

This was really helpful and clear. I especially appreciate your diagrams (bandsawing was my favorite). Maybe while you’re in the motor mood you could do one on the difference between stepper and servo style motors?

[@nikomo]

Reckon any of the Trinamic stepper drivers would fit your needs? Very popular in the 3D printer realm, especially the parts with Stealthchop, that makes steppers practically silent.

[@isettech]

The noise issue and the cogging of the motors is directly related to the construction of the motors. On better motors there is a specification for the ability for the motor to hold position in a step with power off. For better microstepping the one driver has the non linear curve to counter this holding force due to the motor construction. Best microstepping performance is with steppers with minimum holding force with no current. This is the gear type force you feel while turning a stepper motor with no power. The stronger the cogging, the better it holds without power and the more it will be non linear while microstepping. 3 phase brushless servo motors have no power off holding power and are driven with sine wave microstepping for nearly silent operation and an encoder for absolute position control. This is why closed loop is quieter and much more expensive.

[@krtwood]

That second driver is just set up for dubstepping instead of microstepping.

[@MazeFrame]

Some place, that will be writen on the paper attached to a dead motor driver on some production floor... "Only good for dubstepping"

[@Ed19601]

I am not surprised that the first thing that comes up in a search on AliExpress for the TB6600 is a "TB6600 wood router machine stepper motor driver"

[@danflurry]

My nerdometer went off the scales when you started charting the current draws.

[@Durgeshkr00]

I think you are preparing for cnc wood carving machine. Please explain each and every step in part - wise, specially electronics and software portion. I am waiting for your next awesome and adventurous project.

[@steveu235]

Nice explanation with the visuals Thank you

[@imqqmi]

Try Trinamic step sticks for 3d printers. The tmc2130 has silent and spread cycle modes that interpolate 16x microstepping to 256x microstepping making the steppermotor almost silent. Torque and speed may suffer though. 24V is recommended. motor current can be set using spi. The A4988 step stick are a lot cheaper but perform not as good. Noisier and less smooth steps at different current, but you may be able to find a sweet spot.

[@weirdsciencetv4999]

The rotor design can affect how linear the fractional steps can be. Also might help to use a vector based motor controller and a precision current controlled stepper driver if you want real precision.

[@xianshengxu998]

I have a hope that you can come up with a CNC plan and teach me how to build a cnc. Your plan is the best so far.

[@1pcfred]

The TB6600 is quite the upgrade from a TB6560. Toshiba made the drives for completely different uses. I'd say they never intended the 6560 to be used as a general purpose unit. They expected people to use the 6560 in custom made applications. So all of the manufactured hobbyist drives based on the 6560 handle current limiting in a janky way. You're supposed to change the sense resistors but instead they use the digital current reduction control.

[@AlForte13]

great demonstration!!! Thanks Matthias - I like this!

[@JDeWittDIY]

I noticed that when driving the steppers at fast speeds you get what sounds like various pitched tones. It would be cool to set up various steppers at various fast speeds to produce different tones, and combine that in a script to play a short and simple song like Pachelbel's Canon in D. Why? Because you can.

[@peterfrancis8789]

Thanks Matthias - more interesting stuff. At ~06:36 you say for the second time it's an old Raspberry Pi, and it has only a single core processor. To me, it looks very like a model 2B, which is what you've labelled it in black marker. The model 2B was introduced in Feb 2015 (confirming it's an old model), however, it does have a 4 core processor (900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU).

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

The 2 stands for my second Pi. Not model 2

[@senorjp21]

Expecting an electronic version of the box joint jig... The ESP32 family of System-on-a-chip are great. Cheaper than the PI, works with the Arduino IDE, and has built in WiFi.

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

the nice thing about hte PIs is, I don't need any IDE or stuff like that.

[@zweg1321]

Nice video I was wondering how they got stepper motor on cheep cnc to get partial movement

[@scotty2307]

Play Merry Had a Little Lamb, with a stepper motor.

[@fehlerstromalex]

My CNC has steppers

[@dtec30]

Hmmm analogue stepper clock ? With net auto time

[@nwbstplyr]

hi trying to set up like this but i cant seem to run them. when i run the pyhton file it just moves a bit then it finishes

[@LabFiona]

Preparing CNC machine?

[@DCDLaserCNC]

Are you planning a project using stepper motors?

[@axelSixtySix]

Matthias, when the 18° motor vibrates a lot, are you sure about the driver's Vref ? Because it looks like a current problem.

[@roshanijaz1]

It works fine on arduino as arduino supply 5v to the driver. And jerks are much low. Can you guide how i can remove those jerks while working on raspberry pi 4

[@ratchet1freak]

It's more likely that the circuit board ones use cheaper driver transistors that don't have good behavior in the linear region (or it uses PWM). Whereas the enclosed driver (with a decent sized heatsink) does small currents much better. giving it better behavior when microstepping.

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

or you could just look up the part numbers and see that both use integrated circuits.

[@ratchet1freak]

I was talking about the quality of the integrated circuits, the internal driver transistors, and their general characteristics.

[@PoYoTheWild]

Are you working on Raspberry Pi controlled cnc?

[@garagemonkeysan]

Great explanation of micro stepping. Thanks for sharing. : )

[@ginghuskhan2000]

You had no problem with signalling the controllers (expecting 5v) with 3.3v of the RPi? Interesting. I've been reading lots about this with various answers (works/doesn't work/volt levellers). Is current on the gpio pins a concern?

[@haukur1]

It would be interesting to see how quiet the motors can get when you optimize the step/current profile using the Pi. Doing it in Python should make that a lot easier.

[@alexlandherr]

At 3:13, EDM for electrical engineers?

[@chodgson]

Looking forward to what you're going to do with those steppers! Robo-Matthias to do all the heavy work and save your tendonitis?! How many robots does it take to cut a mortise and tenon? It doesn't matter, they're robots!

[@omidanmr3]

hi is it possible to publish wiring diagram between Raspberry Pi 1 B+ and stepper driver like this or like TBH7128 Please thanks

[@FlightSim2703]

Very interesting, thanks very much for sharing. Regards

[@EnergySeeker]

have you tried the IBT_2 ?

[@dst0815]

You should try Trinamic SilentStepSticks

[@stevesus3295]

Want less noise? Turn the current down - set the stepper controller to a lower amperage.

[@1pcfred]

Adjusting the current properly is more important than many realize. And you are better off to run lower as opposed to higher if your goals are smooth motion with the most torque. Stepper motors tend to work rather backwards to how most may imagine they do.

[@zapallalla]

Stepping can be quite jittery with raspi if you control it with python/gpio. Try arduino and hw pwm. Also try playing with current setting to get it smooth.

[@ALIREZAMOHAMMADSHAH]

which driver do you recommend? TB6600 or TB6560?

[@AsEr90100]

Can run 6 stepper motor with driver TB6600 ...on Raspberry

[@leiwulong2976]

Here comes the hotstepper!

[@MrPhoenix1138]

Hi Matthias! Keep up the good work! Thanks!

[@RubixB0y]

Great video! Good idea showing the different quality motors and drivers to see what their quirks are. How was it that you graphed the curves? Do you probe voltage levels directly with a rasberry pi pin and figure that the voltage is proportional to current or was there some sort of current shunt of known resistance?

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

Measured every step with a volt meter

[@1pcfred]

@@matthiasrandomstuff2221 I never really understood reactive loads and lagging currents myself. Conceptually I've heard about it all enough but it's just never clicked for me. Although working with stepper motors does tend to make the relationship between electricity and magnetism all more tangible.

[@mattx3020]

The noise is often a function of the pwm rate ofthe driver

[@HarmanRobotics]

True for DC motors, not for steppers.

[@mattx3020]

Harman Robotics also for steppers

[@BenRyherd]

Is it possible that the "nicer motors" aren't actually any better at keeping evenly spaced steps, but moreso that the steps already represent such small angles, that at that smaller scale is just less perceptible? From basically everything I've read about microstepping, which admittedly isn't a ton, they always warn that microstepping is more to make accelerations better and the motors quieter and not so much to squeeze more precision out of them.

[@1pcfred]

Nicer motors are exactly that. They're a lot nicer than not so nice motors. It takes a lot of precision to make a really nice stepper motor. Which is why they cost as much as they do. I have some 0.8 degree Vexta motors that run like butter. They cost like $200 a piece though. So a tad pricier than mainland Chinese stepper motors. And indeed microstepping is done to reduce harmonics. Ideally you'd run a stepper motor on pure sine waves. But they're harder to control digitally. I have a big old Slo-Syn motor with 120V input voltage that I've run straight off wall current. I just phase shifted the second coil with capacitors. It ran very smoothly. But it only went one speed and stopped and started depending on applied power. So not terribly useful for controlled motion.

[@macedindu829]

I understood some of this.

[@franksalterego]

Hey !!!... I have an idea !!.. Why don't we revisit the box-joint jig, and refit it with stepper motors?

[@woodsmith_1]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/moWqgJKEh5uMn6M

[@kitcattstudios8377]

Could you possible show or direct me to the code used for this please?? :)

[@paritoshdesai]

What’s your recommendation for the best and simplest CAD software to use with woodworking projects? Maybe you could do a video on it?

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

watch my videos.

[@Don.Challenger]

Rev up that old Raspberry Pi (Oops, wrong channel) Trod on that square stepper motor . . .

[@AsIsStuff]

How do you happen to post the exact same thing I'm currently playing with?)

[@danieldahme8590]

Does anyone else see these strange frames at 3:50, 5:25 and 6:41?

[@Ed.R]

Yes which is why I came to the comments section to see if anyone else had. Could be sections of the video that got cut out but not completely.

[@lobley2]

And 1.08. Is Matthias trying to send us subliminal messages? :). It would be interesting to see what those frames are but my ability to hit pause at the right time is not up to the task.

[@thacheful]

@@lobley2 you can go frame by frame with "," and "."

[@Nudgysirens]

Scott Howard RIP mobile users

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

A KZbin bug, probably triggered by uploading in 720p

[@anorderedhole2197]

Matplotlib and pandas libraries for python can replace excel in exciting ways.

[@EverythingisOnline]

Thank you for demonstration. İ use a4988 driver and motors with raspberry. Right now i want to learn how to make cnc without any other boards. Which program can i use to drive steps. From 2d or 3d files to gcode to motors. İ dont want to use any computer or arduino or cnc control board. İ know raspberry is enoght to do it. But i cannot find much information.

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

If you don’t want to use an arguing you have to write your own sftware

[@EverythingisOnline]

@@matthiasrandomstuff2221 i find rasbigcd most probabily this will solve my problem but it has no interface like grlb. github.com/pantadeusz/raspigcd

[@infocpctrainer]

very interesting but whooshed way over my head. what are they used for?

[@1pcfred]

Usually precise motion control. Like 3D printers or CNC machines.

[@simonhopkins3867]

Stepper motors from printers and photocopiers are generally more accurate and better quality than cheap new ones. If anyone is interested in having a play!

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

Modern printers don't contain stepper motors. Only older dot matrix printers.

[@olssim]

I used a stepper motor from a 15 year old ink jet printer for a ”barn door tracker” project. Great fun!

[@jt1731]

I predict a DIY CNC in your future?

[@axelSixtySix]

We'll see, but unless Matthias has changed his thoughts about CNCs, I guess we would rather see a motorized finger joint jig or so...

[@jakester1390]

nice one frame goof at 1:09

[@ktchan7073]

try a tmc 2160 mks

[@woodsprout]

Oh, no. You have prompted "wooden cnc" comments.

[@tibfulv]

They do exist, lol. I know of ones you can build from plywood.

[@woodsprout]

@@tibfulv, I think if Matthias built one though, he would want to write software so that you can squeeze all parts made on the CNC together, to touch each other and not waste material.

[@BeardedSkunk]

Of cause your power supply has a wooden enclosure 😄

[@esamottawa]

I stumbled across his video about it a few days ago - kzbin.info/www/bejne/h6e2oGSjapp9hsk

[@mrfreeman1985]

reminds me of 'phantom of the floppera'.. search that on youtube :D

[@FishyCanada]

Do you think that the 3-volt signal would be smoother had it not been starved down from the 5-volt it's expecting?

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

the 3 volts is the signal side. that has nothing to do how the voltages and currents on the power side.

[@1pcfred]

@@matthiasrandomstuff2221 when I built stepper drives timing losses in the optocoupler inputs was a substantial factor. But that was a while ago so maybe the new hardware performs a lot better than it used to? I'd still have to see it on a scope to believe it though.

[@theweepinghunter]

i love your vids but this one hurt my brain BUT thank you

[@103apartment]

Next is a CNC DIY

[@blhale1]

I can only imagine what this will lead to. :)

[@Whiteoverred5]

😯 Matthias is building a cnc?

[@chrisrodriguez2275]

I'm just waiting for Matthias to make a proton pack.

[@alexj0101]

Awesome

[@johnarnebirkeland]

Have you verified that the unevenness didn't come from jitter caused by generating the step pulses in software? A simple Arduino using hardware PWM would solve that.

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

That bumpiness is way way slower than the pulse rate, and totally a function of which motor and driver.

[@Veso266]

where did you buy the black (noisier) stepper motor driver?

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

ebay

[@Veso266]

what is the name of it?

[@ARIES5342]

If you say so, and this will help us defeat Brainiac how? Adam

[@papa2074]

hi dear matthias i really am confused with the range of science that you are dealing with ...how are you getting familiar with them with so in depth ....do you follow any specific course or is your degree related to physics or electricity...'cause i am interested in them ut my knowledge is not so classified as you and of course you use so much money in buying and checking them that i think with my full time working as a employee is not possible....how could you move from all time wooden works to servo motors? and how useful they can be....

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

I just figure it out as I go along. School is not a good place to start.

[@675harshit]

I need the python code

[@lightdark00]

Now make some music with the stepper motors please 😊

[@Chlorate299]

Microstepping makes them a bit more efficient too.

[@dtec30]

Cham stepper motor clock with Internet time reffference