Will repetier, marlin, teacup, or any other firmware work for me?!!!!

I have an arduino and ramps 1.4 setup and have tried just about every different firmware to try to solve my problem. That is to drive my motors consistently. I have some 7.5 deg. steppers from an old printer for my z axis on a cnc.

Is there any firmware that is capable of driving any thing other than 1.8 degree stepper motors?

I believe that my main problem is probably the pulse rate that my motors will accept compared to that of the 1.8 degree stepper motors.

Is there any hope???

7.5 Deg stepper motors should work fine ASSUMING they're 4 wire stepper motors, and not 5 wire.

I don't know (off the top of my head) any RepRap electronics that will drive 5 wire stepper motors. Note that you can't just ignore the 5th wire and treat them as 4 wire motors - they're wired completely differently inside.

You may find that some 7.5 deg motors don't like certain types of microstepping, so you may have to go to 1/4, 1/2, or even full stepping. to get them to work reliably.

Note: You still need to calibrate the number of steps the firmware will do to move a specific distance in your firmware.

Thanks for the reply. They are indeed 4 wire bipolar motors but whenever I calibrate the number of steps per unit in the firmware and set the max feedrate the motors still jitter and will maybe turn 1 out of 4 times.

Steps/mm x mm/s = steps/sec. I am using this equation to solve for my max feedrate when I know the rated steps per second of the motor and the steps per unit. On the datasheet for my motors it says pps which I think is pulse per second. Is this the same as steps per second with full stepping?

Help is much appreciated. I have been stuck for two days on this problem.

I've been working with the Ramps 1.4 test code and by changing the delay after the digitalwrite(xyz step pins) I am able to get the motors to run.

Am I right in saying that the pulse rate is the problem?

If so is there any way to change this in any of the existing firmwares?

You want to change the max speed and acceleration values in your firmware. This might slow it down appropriately.

Thanks for the reply cefiar. Could you suggest how I could do this without reuploading the firmware each time I change it. And what is a reasonable acceleration that would slow it down?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2014 10:52AM by jtoombs.

Got it working. It was an easy fix. I feel like an idiot like I always do with electronics. I had the wires for each coil on the wrong spot on the drivers. I thought the outside two were a coil and the inside two were one. Well... I was wrong. Thanks for the help anyway.