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[gehelem]

new test :
gear changing is activated x16 / x2
During x800 goto, reading conf pins on TMC2100 gives :
CF1 ~ 1v
CF2 ~ 0v (need to confirm this one)
CF3 ~ 1v
During sideral tracking, i read
CF1 ~ 0v
CF2 ~ 300mv > ?? is this what they call "floating" ??
CF3 ~ 0v

[gehelem]

Annnnnnnnd ! Card burned...
i've made a shorcut between GND and motor output.
i think one of my driver is dead (and my arduino, too)
will have to wait a few days....

[TCWORLD]

The TMC's I ordered have just arrived and I see the problem you were having with microstep modes.

Haven't yet worked out what is happening though.

I'll keep searching.

[TCWORLD]

Well, found the problem.

For me it wasn't a firmware issue, but rather an issue with the driver board. It seems there are a million different clones of the TMC2100 and some (maybe many) of them didn't follow the original design.

There are two very small solder jumpers on the back of the driver boards labelled CFG1 and CFG2. These are the mode select pins. On the drivers I got, these two solder jumpers aren't shorted which means there is no connection from the mode select pins to the actual chip. Once I bridged the jumpers it, mode select appears to work.

[gehelem]

Hi,

this was really a good point to check
thank you for searching...
At the moment i'm still waiting my new TCM2100, they are somewhere on a boat, between here and there...

What do you think about these driver ? about awesome silence ?
They can be driven in chopper mode : don't know what it means but with that you can achieve really smooth moves
(but config pins must stay float)

[Jonesdee]

Hi Tom

(moved from 'Loss of COM Port' Thread): With DIY Mega 2560 and DRV8824 stepper drivers, slews initiated from Cartes du Ciel are very slow indeed and the motors are very noisy.  Slewing via EQMOD NESW controls is fine.but Spiral Search is also noisy.

Downgrading to 8.05 cures the problem.

Let me know if you need me to save any files or do any other testing

Cheers

Dave

[Jonesdee]

Update to my last post on slew speeds :

Using the EQ-5 Custom Pulley config, the Goto Rate multiplier usually appears as 808 in the config setup. When upgrading a Mega 2560 to 8.11 for the first time, opening the custom pulley config the correct multiplier appears.  If microstep gear changing is then disabled, the multiplier changes to 507. re-enabling Gear Changing then sets the multiplier to 504.  Loading the config file again brings 808 back.  This does not happen on susequent config changes (i.e. once 8.11 has been written to the board).

Similarly, when downgrading from 8.11 to 8.05, the first timethe config file is loaded, the goto multiplier shows 101. Loadingthe config file a second time corrects it to 808.  No other parameters change.

I also mentioned in an earlier post that upgrading took a very long time - this is because I was leaving my mouse pointer on the 'Next' button.  It seems that after some operations, the button does not function until the pointer is clicked elsewhere on the screen then returned to the button.  Maybe an issue with the touchpad on my laptop?

I should receive some 0.9 deg stepper motors this week, so will try 8.11 with TMC2100 driver boards.

[Jonesdee]

Hi Tom, when you have a moment (I know that you are very busy !), could you please let me know the make of your TC2100 drivers (if they are marked)?  I bought a pair which are labelled "BigTree Tech" and each behaves differently.  The first appears to run at the correct sidereal speed and slews quite slowly, while the second runs more than 4 times faster in both sidereal and slew modes and causes the motor to be a lot noisier.  My drivers are mounted in sockets, so are easy to change around and the issue definitely follows the driver board.  I can't see any physical differences between the two units (solder links etc).

Replacing them with 8825s and re configuring 8.11 accordingly fixes the issue and the controller runs normally (with the known skip while tracking).  I have not fitted the diode array to this controller as I was hoping the the TC2100s would fix the micro stepping problem.

I am testing with 10V 0.4A 0.9* resolution motors, running in 16 microstep mode on both drivers.

Cheers

Dave

[TCWORLD]

Hi Dave,

Mine say Big Tree Tech on them as well.

Make sure that the three red dotted jumpers are shorted (and no others):

[Jonesdee]

Hi Tom

Thanks very much for responding so quickly!

As far as I can tell (with my 70 year old eyes and a magnifying headset), these jumpers are not shorted on my boards - many thanks for the tip.  Just to be sure, I will get a second opinion in the morning then hit them with the soldering iron if my suspicions are correct .

Hope all is going well in the US and that you are enjoying there.

Cheers

Dave

[Jonesdee]

Hi again Tom

I tried linking the jumpers today, however on each board one solder pin of one of the pairs disappeared when I applied the iron (16 watt pointed tip).  Currently CFG1 remains open circuit on one board and CGF6 remains open on the other.  Strangely, this hasn't impacted the performance of either unit, one seems to run OK and the other still runs fast!  Anyway, I decided to make one last expenditure on this and have ordered a pair of 5v boards from the original supplier (Watterot) and these should arrive in the coming days.

Will let you know how these perform, as I understand that the required jumpers are connected by default on these units.

Rgds

Dave