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Great analysis! Love your dynamometer!! YES please microstepping vs torque! And I would love to see TMC5160 compared to an established closed loop stepper with optical encoder, e.g. Stepperonline CL57T driver.

Cool tests. I"m looking for steppers for random projects other than 3D printing so this is helpful

I tested serve42c vs standard stepped with TMC. I think: serv42c is stronger, and quickly than standard stepper. I don't really understand why the video shows that servo42 is slower. (setup is siliminar: microstep 16)

This is a great video. I possess all of those motors and have played around with them not to the graphing extent that you have however. Speedy powers didn't last long for me because I'm dyslexic and I accidentally put the decimal point in the wrong area and fried both my speedy powers pretty much instantly. My superpowers however are very nice and they are connected to 5160 pro external Big tree Tech drivers . I was previously using the TV 6600 drivers and I experienced the same result

This is amazing, exactly what I needed! Bless you

honestly 32gbs for 5 bucks is pretty good

why r u testing 2209 at 12v? It can go up to 24v as well

It’s a good dyno but the use of a padded brake and brake disc is a factor that can lead to bad numbers in the long run due to nature of wear. Maybe using centrifugal force and fixed weight would have less outside influences.

Hello , thx for great video. I must say for the test purpose i bought 15TB flash drive for about 5 Euro. And as expected same as in your video shows 15,3T. Well your F3 software wasnt working as intended -shows me same error msg as was already mentioned in comments here (f3probe: read_all(): unexpected error code from read(2) = 121 : Remote I/O error) . But as i before tried full format and didnt finish (too slow to fully done) , just to get back to guick format - can be the reason for that error in my case. After that i did try this tool what i can recommend as its super fast and also in Windows can be used : ValiDrive. Where i got the right information : 2 dots from all in graphic view were green - valid. rest shows as red = no storage. in next result window i got information there are ~30GB storage. Next i get inside of the usb key - really simple done by get off aluminium cover and then i needed just push to lock (2 mm in size) and in same time pulling out usb3 part of the disk. Inside i found card in card reader. Card was made in korea, but nothing else was usefull from text there. I put it in card reader and format it (its shows 30GB already), so windows formating tool was enought for this task and becouse of real 30GB to format, now was time aprox. 1h to finish even slow full format. After that i moved card back to usb "key" (card reader) and buala - new 30GB card with good looking card reader in one for free to use ;p . I must say as it was bought from aliexpress and i did my tests fast enought, i reported fake usb and get my money back (seller didnt get money from aliexpress at all). Cheers

Good video, really hoped to see the nema17 motors i personally use in this test. I use the steppermotor 2,1 A, 0,65nm motor. Wouldve been the highest holding force in this test while being not the highest Amp. The serial number is 17HS24-2104S - i am super happy with these motors and i can just recommend them.

I'm confused why you didn't get any hybrid steppers on your lineup?! They put normal steppers to shame in pretty much every single category, except one - price. They're the ones in one piece aluminum round cases, instead of laminated steel sheet bodies. They are insanely powerful compared to a cheap laminated steel stepper

The dyno design is great, but running stepper drivers on a solderless breadboard is just asking for problems and likely the cause of your 24v failures. When you are switching relatively high currents at high speed you need low impedance supply rails with plenty of decoupling, something that a breadboard just cannot provide. Why not use an existing stepper driver board like the SKR?

Interesting results. Would be nice to run some resonance test for each of the motors. I have StepperOnline motors on several of my builds and they perform pretty well. In my Voron 0.2 build StepperOnline resonate less than LDO motors which results in better prints quality over all.

Very nice and detailed video but what makes me curious what about accuracy and repeatability of those motors or maybe it’s not determined by the motors it self I actually don’t know so please let me know/ us know . Keep it up 👍

Would like to see the popular Wantai motors used in high-speed printers.

Simple way to select a "fast" stepper is to look at the inductance (often listed) as it's the thing that will, during running, limit the current rampup and thus also torque.

Nice video! Is it possible to test motor noise for VFA generation video? I am of the mind to use a motor with the least VFA and sacrifice torque for a smooth curve! Do they exist!?!

It’s unclear to me how the load cell is measuring the braking force. I would greatly appreciate if you could elaborate on that please. I love the dynamometer setup!

I found the "TB6600" (no such chip on them in the 1/32 microstep version, it's a TB67S109AFTG or similar) drivers to be really nice and reliable with the big heatsink, isolated inputs etc. Those tiny breakout boards can be a pain in the ass, they can get quite hot, can be really sensitive to noise and randomly die on you, just like this one.

Nice setup. It would be interesting to see the actual current waveforms of the different drivers. You have to keep in mind that when comparing smoothness of operation and noise, newer drivers are basically cheating because they don't really do steps anymore, they treat your step input more as a suggestion and generate a sort of sinusoidal waveform, trying to guess what you're doing and what you need.

I also blew up a few btt 2209 drivers on my 24v printer, one of the capacitors failed. i think it was c6 next to the "bottom" label. i soldered a through-hole 100nf in that place and the drivers worked again.

Let me make this very simple: if you have the right kind of motor driver and are doing field oriented control, all your tests are useless and meaningless and all of the motors will perform similarly. Source: I'm an actual electrical engineer who implements custom motor control systems. If you rely on purely open loop step-based control (like the TMC2209 or similar), then you are entirely at the mercy of winding inductance and resonance. Proper field oriented control with a position encoder (yes, even for hybrid stepper motors) will give you optimum results on any of those motors. Look at the SimpleFOC project for an excellent open source implementation of this. Note: this is NOT the same thing as "closed loop stepper drivers". Those still use a step based driver, not field oriented control.

This is really SOMETHING!

This was a great vid. So you recommend the high torque motors for perhaps the Z motors and the high rpm for the X and Y motors?

The entire flash memory sellers on AliExpress (there are literally hundreds) are selling these fake TF brand labeled cards, Lenovo, Sony, Xiaomi, Sansumg (yes, intentionally spelled this way), SanDian (fake SanDisk), if they are only a few dollars, then they are obviously fake, probably only 8 GB data storage, but faked with high capacity values. Now it's going to be fun fighting off the fakes and somehow shutting these sellers down, which is probably not going to happen, as they just close the store and give it new name, it's so nuts seeing this happening.

Love it, finally somebody going deeper into steppers. I'm very deep into cheap servo motors - this territory might be even crazier! But, 14:22 your whole setup is flexing.. not good for reliability of data :(

Id you control Junction resistances on The bread board? At 2 A they might Be significant.

The best ones are the ones I get free from decomissioned robots from work.

3:09 I'm guessing the P-Channel didn't work because once you turn it on by lowing the HDR signal, you won't be able to turn it off again because the HDR signal voltage at the gate will never be higher than the Drain.

I noticed that some TB6600 driver modules have a circuit connected to the TQ pin of TB6600 chip that chopps the current limit to 30% of its setting, during half step period. May be that is affecting your measurements; i mean, instead of its "brains". You can check by probing pin 3, whether it stays high (5v) or not.

I few thoughts as a scientist: I saw a motor move in your test rig - you need to fix the mounting system. The twist will not be linear, and it ruins your torque test because some of the motors torque is being used to twist the motor in its mount. This is probably not a good place to use a printed part. While including the old school driver was "interesting," it should not be included for comparison since things are obviously not remotely similar. Your driver circuit is not properly designed and your measurements are being infected by back EMF from driving an inductive load. There should be a schematic with some of those motors showing how to deal with it - you will need some capacitors (of the correct type) to manage this. You can measure amperage with a shunt circuit using the RPi. It will not be a good as a dedicated amp meter, but it will be better than nothing. Lastly, you are probably also having issues with your wiring, especially in these low voltage tests where amperage is highest. In particular your breadboard is almost certainly not able to function at high amps. Voltage drop over the circuit can be a major issue, especially if you are using Chinesium connectors. Your circuit needs to be built with a huge margin, something like 80% derating to ensure it is not affecting the experiment. Solder those high amp wires, use genuine western made wire and connectors purchased from a place like Mouser (Not Amazon)

I believe with the tmc2209 that it does not face such high current draw during holding torque/no movement situations depending upon settings. Doing UART control with an esp32 I've had it successfully vary in current/power draw between different parts of operation. Just a heads up. This is amazing though and I beyond appreciate such

I recently had a problem involving this exact setup: a (generic noname) NEMA17 stepper, a TMC2209 driver (used with factory defaults as dir/step only drive) at 1/8 microstep and a 12V supply - low speed torque seemed ok, but the motor literally stalled around 600RPM or so, with no load, no matter what I did. Tried a beefier PSU, tried maxing the current pot as far as I dared, tried different microstep, nothing helped - even with gradually trying to raise the speed, the motor just started shaking and stalled. Really weird, and extremely disappointing - 600RPM a.k.a. a measly ten turns per second is NOT all that fast...

poderia Usar o TMC2160. Excelente driver da trinamic, com capacidade de 4.1A e 36V.

Good test. You will not be disappointed with the 5160. I used 2208 (Creative board), 2130 and 5160 (BTT OCTOPUS) on an Ender 5 PRO and a 5 PLUS modified with linear rail and with StepperOnline like the ones in your test. I have not measured the torque but the reliable maximum speed results are visible: if 2208 are 100%, 2130 are 150% (bit of whine at low speed) and 5160 are 170%. Now with all 5160 the loudest things are the PSU and cooling fans.

Very interesting! Would be great to also include a rough price of the motors next time

IMO the most interesting results are "hidden" in speed and torque curves - how much (answer: yes, torque varies pretty much between full steps :) ) speed varies when micro stepping. In 3D printers we can see VFA at lower speeds (e.g. Prusa MK3, any Ender 3 clone), more strongly when the printer is designed for high speed (e.g. Creality K1). They can be fixed in various ways (0.9 degree steppers on MK4, smaller steppers and pullies on K1C). Motor design (smooth stepping) and matching torque with moving mass (less torque and micro step judder with more momentum at higher speeds) and belts (spring) might lead to better print quality. Driver current may also affect VFA (not sure if it is tested) and might need to be dynamically adjusted for speed and acceleration of movement? Silencing stepper noise on Bambu Lab printers and Prusa XL probably also provides smoother surfaces with less VFA...

You should also include the fancy stuff, like Nanotec. And compare similarly specked models for this to make any sense.

There is no such thing as "the best", the best for what purpose? At what current, for what speed, under what load?

I have had success using TMC5160 with Nema 23 motors for driving a peristaltic pump (pulsating load). I used spread cycle mode to get the best results in terms of limiting heat and noise for speeds from 0.1RPM to 500RPM. However, to accomplish this it is necessary to send a new configuration datagram based on selected speed.

I'm trying to figure out why you can't measure torque at zero speed. I'd think the load cell on the dyno wouldn't be the problem. Is the problem with needing to provide steps to the driver? Any insight would be appreciated. I really enjoyed the video. Thanks for all the hard work. I subscribed.

Might be worth plotting `speed * torque` versus speed. (This is just 'output power' versus speed, give or take a constant factor.) It results in a much flatter graph, which tends to be much easier to read. Also, you can get stall torque with that setup. Just lock the brake on full, then drive the stepper.

Subbed, awesome content! I would be really interested in testing the 5160tpro with the same motor lineup. Things you could include would be how microstepping affects the curves aswell as input voltage. :)

wow great test machine

Thank you for taking the time to make this presentation.

The dyno you built is fantastic! What a great idea!

Ah.. should have used a more powerful microcontroller from the start.. next time try 1.5x the maximum amperage

#Bigtreetech send this guy bunch of drivers and boards

Looking forward to see similar test for 48 and 60V

Nice video, testing motors at same current setting would be better idea