Problems with v2.3 Stepper Drivers

I'm trying to get all of the electronics up and working for my RepRap, and I'm having trouble at the first components I'm attempting to prove, my Stepper Drivers. I have four of the v2.3 Stepper Drivers, and all four exhibit this behavior similarly.

Basically, they'll come on and work great for 30-60 seconds and then become unresponsive to input from my Arduino. The four LEDs that indicate the power status for a given channel will flicker in a seemingly random manner, and as I said it becomes unresponsive to input. The sketch I'm running on my Arduino is Adrian's simple sketch he offered for driving the motor to spline itself.

After some forum searching the best guess I could make was with my PSU needing a load on all channels for it to provide power properly, so I've soldered up a circuit with 3 100 Ohm 10 Watt resistors grounded to create a light constant load. The PSU in question is a new 500 Watt EATX and the voltage output seems stable on my Multi-Meter but I do not have an O-Scope so I have no idea how clean the supply is.

Has anyone encountered anything like this? Any ideas on what my problem might be? Thanks in advance, and my apologies if I've missed a previous post on this topic.

Are the stepper motors getting hot?
Maybe drawing too much current and turning themselves off, a feature of those devices.

Fix, adjust the current on each stepper driver so that the motor will rotate smoothly, and not get hot.

Grogyan

I've tried running them with the motors running at all different strengths. Everything from near-minimum to near-maximum. The motors don't get hot, but I've never run them for more than maybe 5 minutes as this issue occurs within the first minute of operation.

It's not the motor that gets hot but the IC which then starts chopping the current so that you motor doesn't move. With a cold board, turn it down till the motor stops working then turn it just past the point that it does.

As a quick check try connecting any old Hard drive to the supply this will force the supply into regulation. As the HD puts a load on both the 5v and 12v rails.

I have been used OLD PC supplys that seem to stablize with just the current drawn by the gen 2 or gen 3 hardware being connected.

If this solves the problem you will need dummy loads on both 5v and 12v rails.

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