TMC 2100 and ramps - any pitfalls to avoid?

The chirping was gone when I put them on the RADDS board. It seems to be an 8bit problem. ( Both boards run on 24V )

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o_lampe
RADDS unleashed!

After finding the reason for the vibrating steppers, I replaced the RAPS128 drivers on X & Y axis of my CoreXY with the CF1-modded TMC's
Not only can I print small circles much faster, but I could also crank up the acceleration from 500 to 2000mm/s²!
The printer almost jumps from the table now
And it is still silent in spreadcycle mode.

Replacing drivers: save ~10$ each ( TMC2100 vs RAPS128 )
Fat grin on my face: priceless

If you have to compare both of them you gonna stick to the same micro stepping... you saying 16 microstep of the tmc is faster than the 128 of the raps.. off course it is specially if you use 128 and .9 you past the speed limit a little bit I think. I ran the raps at 64 with 1.8 and never had speed problem on my radds and they are quiet enough ( I dont see any diff in quality between 64 and 128 but saw some between 32 and 64, and sound wise 64 and 128 are the same ( hotend fan still the loudest) but with 64 I dont hit the speed limit.

For the info I gather so far I still think raps128 are superior to tmc (torque, real microstep,plug and play and top cooling, no modding/soldering/fine tuning vref)... Its pretty hard to beat, negative side is the price raps128 are pricey

But since you have both of them on a radds im curious about a quality compare with both the same step/mm setup, put the raps in 16 micro stepping ( and see if they do the same quality at the same speed.

I was just about getting to the end of my tether with TMC's as I kept getting sloping prints. Swapped back to the A4988's honestly not that much noisier (as I was running the TMC's at 1.3A).

Printed again, sloping, it was then I realised one of my pulleys must be slipping - DOH!

Will get back to the TMC testing later on.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

I'm running the X & Y axis of my Prusa with them in stealthchop mode and had many successful prints. Maybe they don't have to run in "canary" mode in some cases?

I'm not feeling the love with my TMC's.

After a couple of slight layer shifts (one step, on one motor, on a 2 hr print) I dropped the VRef on spreadcycle mode to 1.0 volts... disaster. Lots of layer shifts. So I went back to stealthchop... and again, lots of layer shifts.

I'm back on A4988's again. I think the TMC's are a great idea, but they do seem a bit fragile. I'm starting to see what Mutley3D was saying when he said something along those lines.

Yeah I'm in the same position, however I do wonder what it is we are doing wrong, as the TMC 2660's implemented on the duetwifi perform better than any stepper drivers I've ever used and they are not drastically different chips.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

I'm having the same issue. I had them on 0.9V on my delta and they where working ok. two days ago they started to shift layers... I went to 1V and still the same.. Went down to 0.8 and the same. I run them as they came. Im gonna have to go back to regular A4988 too...

Probably they got burnt or something? I have a 80mm fan on top of them with a lot of airflow.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2017 06:09AM by trefhi.

I don't think its thermal damage, I've had a 40mm fan directly over the two TMC drivers, and they are properly cooled in this implementation. With the boards upside down and the heatsinks fixed to the other side of the PCB which is the specified method. They are not hot to touch in use with the fan running.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2017 06:33AM by DjDemonD.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Is anyone using these on 24v? This is one major difference between my duetwifi machine (24v) and my corexy (12v), where I have been testing the tmc's.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2017 07:14AM by DjDemonD.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

I'm glad I'm not the only one! Mine were blasted with a 40x20 blower fan right on top of them. Power supply set to 14 volts or thereabouts.

I can't think of anything that might cause such an issue.

Went back to pololus, problem fixed.

Actually with the TMCs the printer was not doing any noise. How I know if the where on Stealth or Spread? I did not modify the driver, only removed the jumpers on the ramps.

I can't be sure whats happening there, no one seems to have had much success with them, but I am not quite ready to presume they are worthless yet, as they work very well on duetwifi. I'll ask DC42 what the trick is, he must have it nailed on the duet. Maybe the mods we have done are not correct. Maybe theres a very narrow window of current in which they work?

I might install them on my microdelta, its noisy so it will be quite obvious if its working, and it uses 1.0A nema 14's so I know if I set them at 0.8v then its exactly the 80% recommended current for those motors. I might demod them completely to begin with.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Quote
DjDemonD
I can't be sure whats happening there, no one seems to have had much success with them, but I am not quite ready to presume they are worthless yet, as they work very well on duetwifi. I'll ask DC42 what the trick is, he must have it nailed on the duet.

The drivers on the Duet WiFi are TMC2660, not TMC2100. The 2660 drivers are much more configurable (via SPI) and can handle around double the current before they overheat.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Hi David, yes I know the drivers are different, but from the same family. What we're trying to fathom is why the TMC 2100's we are testing here seem so sensitive to current and how we get the best out of them. I wondered if there was some TMC related trick in use on duetwifi that we can't seem to replicate here. Yes the SPI interface must be incredibly versatile compared to soldering tiny jumper pads on the underside of the driver PCB's.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2017 04:54PM by DjDemonD.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

I can't remember the details, but I recall that the TMC2100 and 2130 have relatively high mosfet on-resistance. This will make them prone to overheating if they are not well-cooled - and plug-in drivers are never very well-cooled because they don't have enough PCB area to remove heat from the chip. But I've never used TMC2100 drivers, and I don't know whether they are any worse than A4988 drivers in this respect.

Are you sure you have set the reference voltage correctly to get the motor current you want?

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

According to reprap wiki (possibly not correct I appreciate) it states

Formulas for calculating the values:
Irms = (Vref * 1.77A) / 2.5V
Irms = Vref * 0.71
Imax = 1.41 * Irms
Vref = (Irms * 2.5V) / 1.77A
Vref = Irms * 1.41
Vref = Imax

So setting 1.3v should give 1.3A max current which for a 1.68A motor seems correct. I know if I set it to any less than this it skips steps.
My motors were running about 45 deg C after a decent length print so this seems plausible.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

I run the 1.68A motors on my delta at 1A and they don't skip steps. But YMMV depending on what acceleration you are using, how much mass they are moving etc.

1.3A sounds high to me for most sorts of plug in driver. I presume you are cooling them with a fan?

Btw the interpolation on these drivers isn't perfect. I now run my delta at 64x microstepping instead of 16x interpolated to 256x because it makes it even quieter at low speeds.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2017 05:19PM by dc42.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Yeah they have large heatsinks on them (photo on page 1 of this thread) and the heatsinks are on the pcb side as they are "upside down" compared to A4988's and I had a 40mm fan blowing directly onto them both (x and Y) from around 20mm away. I can stick a thermocouple onto the heatsink and see how hot they're getting, but I removed them as I was getting nowhere fast, so it will have to be another day.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Does anyone else think that it might be something to do with back EMF from the motors? If these drivers don't have good protection diodes then perhaps when manually moving the head around it might have damaged something in there?

What I find strange is that they seem to work fine for a week or two, then start degenerating. If it was purely cooling/overcurrent I'd expect them to fail after the first 20 minute print. Besides, everyone on here seems to have blasted them with loads of air, and we all seem to have had problems after a few weeks.

I manually push my TMC-powered gantry a lot w/o problems and they are silent and powerful enough to move it at 120mm/s. I haven't seen skipped steps yet because the printer only does dry-tests. This is with 32bit@24V and full CF1 mod ( including the solder bridge )

On my Prusa they run at 12V in stealthchop mode and I've had many successful prints since then. ( a few 1st layer fails, but nothing stepper related )

I agree with the comment that RAPS128 are much better in almost all aspects, but I wouldn't want to go back to A4988 or DRV8825.

With my Re-arm now working I was also looking for new drivers. there is one here the promises 1/128 step for 11,5$ [www.panucatt.com]

Quote
sungod3k
With my Re-arm now working I was also looking for new drivers. there is one here the promises 1/128 step for 11,5$ [www.panucatt.com]

I have a set, and really like them. Even at 1/16 they are better than A4988, and stronger then TMC2100.

I'm going to try them at higher microsteps soon.

I've ordered a set of these copies [www.aliexpress.com]

Which came recommended so Ill let you know how I get on with them.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Quote
nebbian

Quote
sungod3k
With my Re-arm now working I was also looking for new drivers. there is one here the promises 1/128 step for 11,5$ [www.panucatt.com]

I have a set, and really like them. Even at 1/16 they are better than A4988, and stronger then TMC2100.

I'm going to try them at higher microsteps soon.

I also run them for the past 8-9 month ( raps version , TH6128) and like them a lot too, compare to 4988 and 8825 they run quiet and heat less , im running them in 1/64 @ around 1.35-1.4 ish ( I set them all the same and did not tune that at all, its just working) I tried 1/128 but I came too close to limit my movement speed for my taste so went back to 1/64, there just no gain from 1/64 to 1/128 for me.

Written up some info on the LV8729 stepper drivers here [forums.reprap.org] seem pretty good running them at 1/32 quite quiet, quite cool and very stable so far so good. Not mind blowing but very capable and as cheap as a4988 which has clearly had its day. Will try the tmc's in my microdelta next, its very noisy and uses nema 14's so a little lower current to handle and more to be gained in terms of noise reduction.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

So desoldered all of the mods and installed 4 tmc2100's
in my microdelta. Nema 14 motors for x,y,z and a geared nema 14 5:1 for the extruder. It was damn noisy before now the micro hotend 25mm fan is still penetratingly loud, but is the only noise being made.

Set vref/current max to 0.6 for x,y,z and 0.7 for extruder, drivers seem cool enough with a 40mm fan blowing from the side, but the motors are fairly warm (not quite too hot to touch), and are mounted in a PETG frame which might be an issue.

But it seems if the demands on these drivers are modest they perform really well.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/2017 06:28PM by DjDemonD.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Has anyone tried /seen the TMC2208? Now available from Watterott.

Still no real luck with the tmc2100's perhaps I'm not patient enough to tune them correctly.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2017 06:08AM by DjDemonD.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

UART for config? Is it possible to put more than one driver on a TX line, or does it mean we have to configure them one_by_one? Haven't read the datasheet yet...just my first thought.

TMC2100 on Replicape works beautifully.

Hi, i want to share my experience and i hope my English will be enough.


i buy a lot of TMC2100, from a lot of different suppliers. I finally found in watterott the right one. White PCB all the times was chinese 2 layers driver and they come ALWAYS forced in 1/16 stealthchop(standalone mode forced with a resistor. source watterott support by mail), if not they are not able to manage the current due to the poor quality and also have a dual logic voltage (3 and 5 ). According to datasheet the dual voltage logic required a sequence for the power on and power off, if not they will work in a wrong way. Watterot also sell a 5v version that is good for RAMPS and similar (MKS ect..) and don't need any attention, like others drivers.

When i try to change the setting of a white pcb's driver i also feel something different, i don't know why but in fact the are working (forced) in stand alone mode so no way to change that. I finally buy the blu pcb version and set as 1/16 spreadcycle, not quieter as the sthealth chop but i set back the acc. to 2000 and jerk to 15 with no loose steps. The best will be pilot the 2130 by the serial SPI, supported by marlin but without a documentation..... they can change between 6 different modes and also change decay by gcode while printing so you can manage silence and torque in according with any single movement of the tool-head... hope someone will make it possible.

i also try the 2208, that use the stealthchop2.... is a bit better but no way for me to set the acc. over 650mm/s or i will loose steps on my heavy Y buildplate.

But the biggest problem come from the controller, 8 bit is not enough to use a real 1/128 microstepping but most of the 32bit board have not the same stuff/community_support/price as a ramps 1.4 or an all in one like the mks gen 1.4. I bought a RADDS but no way to have working the same solution available for the ramps.... hope to see some small project come to real product like the piccolo_3d board.... sad that the alligator 2 will never see the light....