No Torque on NEMA23 Stepper / Arduino CNC

Hi

I built one of the Ooznest OX CNC machines from a kit.
Running 4pcs. NEMA 23HD56001Y steppers.
So I sat up an Arduino with a CNC v3 shield and A4988 drivers and GRBL.
Power supply with 24V 20A.

All seems to be working so far, but the steppers do nearly have no torque, when I use UniversalGcodeSender to move the motors, I can hold them by hand and they fall through, meaning they do not have any moving torque to move the machine.

When the motor is in still position, I am not able to move the pulley by hand, its very strong.
After changing the stepper wiring in various variations (blue, yellow, green, red), reflashing GRBL, setting the stepper driver potentiometer to full power, I am kind of hopeless what else could cause the error.

I hope someone here can help me!

Thanks in advance.

 

Thanks for your answer.
The steppers are moving, but have nearly no torque.
They make sound, also when I connect UniversalGcodeSender the make a quite "brum" sound and block.

I tried with the standard grbl settings:

$0=10
$1=25
$2=0
$3=0
$4=0
$5=0
$6=0
$10=1
$11=0.010
$12=0.002
$13=0
$20=0
$21=0
$22=0
$23=0
$24=25.000
$25=500.000
$26=250
$27=1.000
$30=1000
$31=0
$32=0
$100=250.000
$101=250.000
$102=250.000
$110=500.000
$111=500.000
$112=500.000
$120=10.000
$121=10.000
$122=10.000
$130=200.000
$131=200.000
$132=200.000

as well as with:

$0=10
$1=255
$2=0
$3=6
$4=0
$5=0
$6=0
$10=3
$11=0.020
$12=0.002
$13=0
$20=0
$21=0
$22=0
$23=1
$24=25.000
$25=500.000
$26=250
$27=1.000
$30=1000
$31=0
$32=0
$100=26.667
$101=26.667
$102=200
$110=2500
$111=2500
$112=2500
$120=50.000
$121=50.000
$122=50.000
$130=320.000
$131=525.000
$132=68.000

No microstepping jumpers set so far.

 

Thanks for the hint with the micro stepping.
I set all the jumpers to 1/8 microstepping and used the 2nd settings posted above.
Now, 1 axis is moving with quite strong torque.

I think the cheap Chinese A4988 drivers are just bad quality, since only one of them unleashes the full stepper power.

Any recommendation where to buy a good quality GRBL board for 24V Nema23 steppers?

 

I tried with DRV8825 drivers, but its even worse.
I could not find any documentation on how to configure GRBL to run smooth with these (set the jumpers to 32 steps, but software config?).
Maybe someone can help me.

For the moment I use an Arduino with CNC shield A4988, set to 1/8 steps, but sometimes the steppers stutter and loose steps.

I was digging around in this forum to search for a good board, I am willing to invest some money into a real good board which supports Nema23 steppers, but there are so many, should I go for grbl, mach3, tinyG and which manufacturer (it should be opensource) ?
Which boards are really reliable?

 

I am nearly freaking out....
i now tried 3 various arduino's an severeal DRV8825 and A4988 drivers.
I finally found two A4988 which work, burned some and still fiddling to get two of them to work for the Y axis.
Adjusted the current of the power supply from 23-27 volts.
Adjusted the drivers.... OMG
I will order the drivers from Openbuilds and hope they are better........

 

The drivers burned because this cheap heatsinks moved under temperature and then shortened the circuit. Its really cheap and bad Chinese stuff (you get what you pay for...).

First I adjusted the stepper drivers with a voltmeter, at the end when the motors started to stutter, i just moved the pot screws until they where silent.
I have NEMA 23HD56001Y SPAM brand.

I really think the problem lies on these cheap stepper drivers, because some seem to work now and some do not.

Since I want to use my CNC the next few years without any trouble, I will now order a USB CNC xPro V3 Controller board. In hope this will be something good.

Thanks for all your help.

 

After changing the Arduino with the xPro V3 board it kind of works.
The Arduino solution was crap, the drivers burned and it is just not made for handling these high currents.

It was also important to change some of the settings in GRBL (Step size etc.)

There is now quite enough torque on the motors, but sometimes they make these weird snoring sound when nothing is moving.


Due the lack of time it did not finally test everything so far... but will do for sure

 

I think the fun is over.
Today I made some further tests with my cnc, packed the xPro V3 board into a box with a fan and made some test files in Fusion360.
Suddenly my machine starts to behave weird. The Z-Axis move way to deep into my piece and tried to move in the x axis as well. It blocked.
This was too much, I hit the emergency stop button. After pulling all the axis back by hand, I powered the machine again and started debugging.
I flashed GRBL again and wanted to test the machine. Everything seems to be ok, but the stepper do not get any current. So I replaced the power supply but sill o result. UGS connects to the board, tells me that everything is ok but there is just no current on the steppers, the are quiet and do not move.
I think the extreme movement which the machine could not handle and blocked it, destroyed something on the xPro board. Its really disappointing, after all this time thinkering the fun was not much at all.

So now I am guessing that I need "again" a new board since I can not figure out why nothing is working.
Visually it looks okay, no black spot or bad smelling.

Now thinking about this one: motionPro 6600 motion controller

Or just selling the kit and giving the dream up...

 

Thanks for your help.
Usually when I powered up the machine, the steppers made some sound and started to lock, now I start up and there is no sound at all.
I did put the Z very high, but it somehow went down all the way, it was a quite curious behavior since a day before the exact same .nc file worked without weird uncontrollable movements.

This are my settings:

GRBL OX Settings
++++++++++++++++

$0=10
$1=255
$2=0
$3=6
$4=0
$5=0
$6=0
$10=3
$11=0.020
$12=0.002
$13=0
$20=0
$21=0
$22=0
$23=1
$24=25.000
$25=500.000
$26=250
$27=1.000
$30=1000
$31=0
$32=0
$100=26.667
$101=26.667
$102=200.000
$110=2500.000
$111=2500.000
$112=2500.000
$120=50.000
$121=50.000
$122=50.000
$130=320.000
$131=525.000
$132=68.000

Really looking forward if you can tell me that there is a wrong setting in grbl.

 

Wow guys, you are all awesome.

I really thought that I am too stupid to run a diy cnc.
Setting the grbl command to $4=1 brought back some life to the steppers... so i am back figuring out how to mill things.

@Gary Caruso: i will try the board anyway, not sure if I will use it on the laser, the printer or the (new) router.

Thanks for all your support, its one of this moments where you love the community and the internet