Jerky movement, skipping steps & screaming steppers?

ZenXY Troubleshooting
1

Hi there!

I’m just in the middle of building my ZenXY and I’m having a lot of trouble getting smooth movement. I followed the belt routing on the Some Old Guy Coding youtube, however somethings not quite right.

I have a video but as a new user it won’t let me share the URL or zip it and attach, which is unfortunate because it really explains my issue better.

When I try to move the X axis, the Y axis also jerks and vice versa, homing will fail often and the holding current of the stepper makes them sound like they’re going to explode.

It might be of note that for the first 10 seconds or so, the machine works fine, but once it’s ‘warmed up’ things start to go pear shaped.

I am using 1.5A 12V steppers from amazon and a RAMPS 1.4 with DRV8825 drivers
I have the stepper current set to 0.660 nominally which I understand is correct based on the formula

If anyone could help me that would be great because I’m really excited to get this machine fully built.

(Also I think this might be a duplicate post, Mods, please accept my apologies)

Thanks in Advance

2

Nevermind, it was user error. I HADN’T configured my stepper drives correctly and was giving them way too much current.

3

On the zen, you can drop them way down. I think I am running about 100mA on my steppers. So just stay away from any heat.

Glad you got it working. Do you want to share your build? The link restrictions will be lifted if you read a few posts while logged in.

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I’m still testing so once it’s set up in the coffee table I’ll do a full post on the finished piece, needless to say lots of great inspiration here! Thanks for the advice!

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