I’m getting overtemp errors like mere minutes into testing my setup here. Feeling the driver, it is hot, but how? I’m running the motor at 10mm/sec max and it’s not even constantly running. I have the driver heatsink pretty well applied and it’s in open air, with a ceiling fan above me.
I’m using 20v for motor current because I intend to run this project off a USB C PD adapter. The motor says 2 amps so I think I calculated my run current correctly at 1.42 amps rms.
On a possibly related note, the motor vibrates when it’s enabled by the driver but not moving. Not sure what it is but I’ve never seen it on my actual printers.
klippy.log (940.6 KB)
The maximum recommended current for a tmc2130 step stick is 1.2A from the spec sheets I’ve read. Even at that current you will need a heat sink on the driver and a fan blowing over it to prevent overheating.
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oh,
and I just tested at 1.2 and it still overheated in less than a minute. makes me think that it needs water cooling.
I see the 5160 supports up to 3 amps? I’m not sure if that’s rms or amps period but that’s well more than the 2 amps and 1.42 rms that my motor is rated for. The question is will that also need active cooling of some kind?
The 5160 has a smaller RDSon (100 mOhms instead of 500 mOhms). So with the same current, less heat is produced.
But the more power you draw, the more cooling you need.
Do you really need that much torque on the stepper?
If yes, you may use a stepper driver for CNC machines.
Yes I need the torque, I’m opening window blinds. What stepper driver would you recommend?
I’m not that much a CNC guy. I think there are CNC forums that have more knowledge than me.
Also a search in the internet for CNC driver can give you some results.
Maybe for that usage, the NEMA 17 can be on the limits of power that it can support.
Can you further explain what you mean by
If the driver produces less heat at the same current, where is that cooling needed?
I would try reducing the current to see if it works before spending money on drivers. If you can’t get it to work, try TMC2209 drivers which are much more efficient than the older TMC2130. I run my 2209 drivers at 1.2A for hours at a time with only small heatsinks and a fan lightly blowing air over them.
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Now you are at 1.4 A but you want to go to 2 Amps?
The motors are rated for 2 amps. 2/1.41=1.41843972 ~ 1.42 Amps RMS
I need SPI drivers because as I discovered the other day, the software UART implementation of klipper does not work on the linux host process because it is time sensitive so I am using the SPI bus which uses the RPi spi lib.
You still haven’t answered the question of whether you actually need as much current as you’re attempting to use. The rating of the motor is irrelevant if a lower current will work. Otherwise buy some 5160 drivers and hope nothing overheats.
I’ve been working on theoretical numbers so far. I need about 90% of the torque that my motors are rated at (in theory). I need to print some more parts to test it in action.
If that’s the case, then the TMC2130 is not a good choice. As I noted you’ll need a heatsink and a fan blowing on the drivers to get to 1.2A, and you might still have overheating issues.
