Can I use nema23 motors with ramps1.4 drv8825 drivers? If so do I have to stay under 2A? I am wanting more torque for a heavy x carriage total weight around 4-5lbs. Ty in advance.

You can use any low voltage bipolar stepper with those drivers. The limitation is the current, not the motor. You are limited to 2A maximum (probably more like 1.8A). If your motors run fine at 2A or less, those drivers will work. You can run a stepper at less than its rated current, but you will get less than rated torque.

NEMA-23 motors tend to vibrate more than the NEMA-17 motors commonly used in 3D printers. You can reduce the vibration by using a DSP based driver such as this: [www.sainsmart.com]

Since you're going to be pushing a very massive carriage around, you might want to look into using higher a voltage power supply, at least for the X axis.

I ran my printer's 3 NEMA-23 motors using a RAMPS board for a couple years. I had a very heavy Y axis. I changed the controller to smoothieboard, the Y axis drive to a ball screw, and got a higher torque motor for the Y axis. Now it uses two DSP drivers and 32V power supplies for the X and Y axes.

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

Thank you. You seem to have some knowledge can I ask you if I was wanting to run a ballscrew lead 16mm with a carriage of 5-6lbs what amount of torque should I be looking at to hookup?( nema 23) Or if have a useful website. I saw the torque formula but a little beyond me :/

I used the motor sizing tool at Oriental Motor: [www.orientalmotor.com]

I have a 10mm lead, 15 mm dia ball screw driving the Y axis. I believe the oriental motor calculator said I needed 380 oz-in torque to drive the thing to 50 mm/sec with 1000 mm/s^2 acceleration and 0.05 mm stopping precision (if I recall all that correctly). I use a 425 oz-in motor and it works exactly as expected. I use 1/64 microstepping to try to hold down vibration, but my printer is still noisy. Follow the link in my signature below to see details of the design.

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

that torque website is

ballscrew_torque

I've run plenty of heavy axis using NEMA 23, but used the black box drivers like the 2M542.
3 - 425ozin steppers would only draw about 1.5A when running and had tons of torque.
Those box drivers seem to work everytime, and I struggled getting the little chip sized drivers giving me nice results.
It did happen, but I settled on integrated Rambo boards or Azteeg X3/2m542.

belt driven movements for X/Y, and a screw for Z.

Just reading the SoM instructables. nice work.

... here I've answered the exact same question - [forums.reprap.org]

The machine I'm developing the drivers and software for is such a type with belts for XY and spindle for Z - here are some images, videos and general infos about (in German):
[forums.reprap.org]

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Viktor
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