SparkFun Forums

[ekraft]

I have a NEMA 17 Stepper Motor with four cables and an EasyDriver. I bought both of them off of sparkfun. The version of the EasyDriver I have is the one where the current adj is a white square. I have 15V powering the easydriver. Yesterday, I had my stepper motor moving according to the force of a load cell that I have that reads that force to an arduino uno in terms of voltage. My stepper motor stopped moving. I took a look at it and it is making the sounds that it needs to make, but the gears are not turning; therefore, the shaft is not turning. It just vibrates. I tried another stepper motor that I have and it did the same thing. I borrowed a different driver from a friend and both stepper motors work great. It must have something to do with the controller. What could have caused that, and how could I prevent this from happening in the future?

Other details:
-15V power supply is a AC to DC converter wall jack (like a cell phone charger)
-I have the power supply connected to a power strip and use the switch on the power strip to turn on/off power to driver.
-9V power jack is supplying my Arduino Uno.
-I had it running for about 2 hours before this happened.

[Ross Robotics]

To my knowledge the Easydriver does not have the capacity for Nema 17 size motors. The BigEasyDriver is more suitable.

[EmbeddedMan]

Any chance any of the four wires from the BED disconnected from the motor while power was applied? That will sometimes produce the failure you are describing.

Also, have you tried adjusting the current limit pot at all while running the motor? That can sometimes get bumped, and you may need to reset it back to a good setting.

How much current can the 15V power supply deliver?

*Brian

[fusedlightning]

Definitely sounds like it may be the pot. Did you also double check your wiring? I found that even with one pair wired backwards, you can sometimes get the motor to (weakly) turn, but at different speeds it may stop rotating and just vibrate, as you describe.