SKR 2 or SKR 1.4 with MA860H External Stepper Driver

Hi everyone!

It's been ages since I've posted anything but I'm running out of ideas and am not sure if it's even possible to do what I'm trying to anymore.

I am trying to get a MA860H External Stepper Driver working on my SKR 2 with Marlin 2.0.9 but I'm not having any luck. It's using the EXP1 with the pins mapped but I get no movement. I've triple checked everything, tried common-anode and common-cathode, but the best I get is the motor engaged.

If anyone can confirm that this is something that should work, or if this is a compatibility option and I'm beating a dead horse, I would be hugely appreciative.

Thanks!

... I'm regularly using external drivers with my boards with Marlin4Due oder Marlin2.0 on them -- it's mainly defining the correct pins for STEP and DIR (sometimes Enable too), connecting them together with GND to the inputs of the driver (signal pins to [+], GND to [-] of the driver).

Could be, you have to set pullup resistors, which my boards have installed ... and some drivers needs at less 2ms step-pulse duration to detect a step ...

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Make sure to force the sdcard to use the onboard sdcard if it defaults to the lcd it sets up the SPI pins on exp1/exp2 and wrecks your day

Also check the enable pin. Marln by default expects active low. But most people when they wire the external stepper driver make it active high.

ie

// For Inverting Stepper Enable Pins (Active Low) use 0, Non Inverting (Active High) use 1
// :{ 0:'Low', 1:'High' }
#define X_ENABLE_ON 0

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2021 02:24AM by Dust.

Quote
VDX
... I'm regularly using external drivers with my boards with Marlin4Due oder Marlin2.0 on them -- it's mainly defining the correct pins for STEP and DIR (sometimes Enable too), connecting them together with GND to the inputs of the driver (signal pins to [+], GND to [-] of the driver).

Could be, you have to set pullup resistors, which my boards have installed ... and some drivers needs at less 2ms step-pulse duration to detect a step ...

Thank you for confirming this is possible, I was pretty sure it was but am having a heck of a time with it.

Quote
Dust
Make sure to force the sdcard to use the onboard sdcard if it defaults to the lcd it sets up the SPI pins on exp1/exp2 and wrecks your day

Also check the enable pin. Marln by default expects active low. But most people when they wire the external stepper driver make it active high.

ie

// For Inverting Stepper Enable Pins (Active Low) use 0, Non Inverting (Active High) use 1
// :{ 0:'Low', 1:'High' }
#define X_ENABLE_ON 0

Thanks for pointing that out! I would have completely missed it. It looks like the default has it set to onboard SD and I have disabled the LCD (I think) but am still not having any luck.

At this point I have at least made some progress. Using an arduino I am able to make a simple script that moves the motor, so the stepper driver is actually working. I currently have the DIR+ and STEP+ connected to the 5V on EXP1, then DIR- runs to pin PE12 and STEP- to PE13 (both on EXP1). I am not using the enable pins and the default is active.

When using M43 to check the status on the pins they do show up as configured but I don't get any movement when using a G1 E# command. Cold extrusion protection is disabled and I've tried increasing the pulse width and delays, have checked them against the manufacturer specs, etc, but so far nothing.

READ: PIN: PE11        M42 P75          E0_ENABLE_PIN                          Output = 1
READ: PIN: PE12        M42 P76          E0_DIR_PIN                             Output = 0
READ: PIN: PE13        M42 P77          E0_STEP_PIN                            Output = 0

Any other suggestions would be awesome, thank you for taking the time to help!

Back with another update.

It looks like the board is sending it a signal but I'm betting something isn't right in my MINIMUM_STEPPER_POST_DIR_DELAY, MINIMUM_STEPPER_PULSE, or MAXIMUM_STEPPER_RATE settings. When I have it connected to the arduino the voltage across the STEP connection drops from 5V to 2.3V while it's moving the motor. When I check the same thing on the SKR 2 board, the drop is only 0.02V. I noticed errors in my settings (micro seconds vs nano seconds) but those haven't affected much. By turning the pulse width up from 2 to 200 the voltage drops to 3.2V but I still get no movement.

And another update!

It's working, finally, after only 15 hours of fighting with it...

I found a video of another stepper driver, the TB6600, being used with the SKR 1.3 and it was connected to the CLS pins, which I was under the impression weren't used by Marlin. Apparently they are, because that worked and I now have the motor spinning properly. Thankfully I don't actually need the extra drives that I could connect to EXP1, I just thought I didn't have a choice.

So in the end it wasn't exactly the solution I was looking for, it seems there's something not working right when adding stepper drivers to the EXP1 pins on the SKR 2 using Marlin 2 at the moment, but it does work with the CLS pins and I'm happy with that, haha.

Thank you again for the help!

And one more update, in case it helps anyone in the future.

I'm in the process of building a new machine with a very similar setup and decided to give it another go to get the external stepper driver running on the EXP1 pins on the SKR 2 board with Marlin 2. First try, it worked first try this time, haha.

The stepper driver I'm using this time is a TB6600 which is directly supported in the firmware so it's possible that has something to do with it (I had to put in custom values for the MA860H).

In the end running STEP- and DIR- to the ground pin on EXP1 and running STEP+ and DIR+ to the pins I set in the firmware it's working just fine.