I was just doing a test of a Sanguinololu reprap controller board. Had it plugged into USB and power supply, and one NEMA17 stepper motor. Turned on the power supply, and had the A4983 burst into flames. When I examined everything, I found that the motor had come with two of the wires reversed in the plug. Would this have caused it to fail in such a… spectacular manner? (Testing with another A4983, and the wiring corrected didn’t blow anything up)
Hello.
Were the two flipped wires from different coils? Flipping two wires from the same coil would just change the stepping direction, but flipping two wires from different coils would connect parts of the driver that are not meant to be shorted together. I do not expect the driver’s current-limiting feature to work properly in this case, which could lead to currents beyond what the driver can handle, which in turn can lead to magic smoke and flames. If this is what happened, it is possible that the current also weakened or damaged the stepper motor as well.
- Ben
He has the cables set up RED GREEN YELLOW BLUE where RED=A, GREEN=C, YELLOW=B, BLUE=D
From the schematic, It looks like A/C is coil 1, B/D is coil 2
Which two cables were flipped?
- Ben
Not sure. But if I make sence of the diagrams, either coil 1 or coil 2 was backwards.