Burnt out stepper drivers with the buildlog laser interface

Electronics related to CNC

Burnt out stepper drivers with the buildlog laser interface

Postby leros » Fri Aug 15, 2014 3:10 am

I'm finally getting around to finishing the electromechanics for my laser cutter. I built a buildlog laser interface driver. I tested it by connecting a motor to a single axis at a time. Everything worked perfectly. I plugged in all three of my stepper motors, applied power, and the stepper drivers all immediately caught on fire.

I email Pololu and they said it was likely caused by a voltage spike when the power came on. Their documentation says you need a 100uF capacitor across the motor power and ground, which is supposed to help absorb that spike. The laser interface driver has a 200uF capacitor for each driver between Vdd and ground , but nothing between 24v and ground. I have more stepper drivers on the way and I plan to add some capacitors before testing.

I'm mostly posting this as information in case anybody else runs across this problem, but I'm interested to see if anyone has run into this problem.

Update: I soldered a 100uF 50v capacitor directly to each stepper driver PCB. Everything works fine now.
leros
 
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