Using different Stepper drivers

Are there any problems with using different types of stepper drivers on the same Ramps board. I want to upgrade to a TMC2100 Stepper driver on my X-axis only. The motor gets pretty warm and its also rather noisy. I am curious if the TMC2100 will make any different. I am currently using 5 A4988 drivers and want to upgrade slowly since the TMC2100 are a little more pricey.

This is all ive come across so far on mixing and matching. Not TMC2100 though.
It seems thekey thing is orientation as pins can get confused when mixing and matching.
[reprap.org]

Gordon

I really appreciate the information. Looks like I'll have to try it out and see what happens. I'll definitely post my results here. Thanks again.

Since I wrote the page that Gordon refers to, I thought I could chime in this thread.

Yes, you can mix A4988s and DRV8825s on the same RAMPS, and I believe mixing in those new TMC2100 based drivers should not be a problem. From what I have read/seen they are the best option out there for RepRap users, but still a little bit too expensive for me.

What microstep factor are you looking to achieve, and what maximum speed? The TMC2100 supports up to 256x microstepping. Marlin already has to generate bunches of 4 microsteps at once in order to keep up with 16x microstepping at high speeds, so I suspect you may find that you can't achieve much better than 32x on Arduino/RAMPS or other slow electronics. Variable microstepping might be a solution, but neither RAMPS nor (AFAIK) Marlin support that.

Unless you can find some user reports of TMC2100 drivers on Arduino Mega/RAMPS that address these concerns, I suggest you go for DRV8825.

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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].

@dc42 You should check some YouTube videos and technical docs about the TMC2100, it has an interpolation mode that is really neat and solves the issues you refer to.

Quote
AndrewBCN
@dc42 You should check some YouTube videos and technical docs about the TMC2100, it has an interpolation mode that is really neat and solves the issues you refer to.

The interpolation that it uses for microstepping in some modes doesn't alter the fact that if you use step/dir interface with fixed microstepping (which you are pretty much forced to do if you plug it into a RAMPS board), then if you drive it at 256 microsteps, the step pulse rate at high speeds will be rather high for an atmega. For example, a typical printer with 80 microsteps/mm @ 16 microstepping would need a step pulse rate of 128kHz to reach 100mm/sec @ 256 microstepping. Maybe Marlin can cope with this (I guess it might be able to generate up to 64 step pulses per interrupt instead of the usual 4), maybe not. I am just saying, don't assume that 256 microstepping is achievable on Arduino Mega/RAMPS without good evidence. If you know of any YouTube videos that you consider good evidence, feel free to link to them.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2015 07:49AM 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].

@dc42 What I meant is that if you understand how the TMC2100 works and/or have experimented with it a little bit, you are clearly going to use 1/16 (or at most 1/32) microstepping with 1/256 interpolation, it just does not make any sense to use 1/256 pure microstepping.
Did you take a look at some of the videos?

I've re-read the datasheet, and I see now that I misunderstood how the interpolation mode works. I agree with you, 16x microstepping and 256x interpolation should work well with just about any electronics.

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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].