How to Tune 3D Printer Stepper Drivers | RAMPS 1.4/Pololu A4988

All of this information applies to all Folger Tech Printers, or any 3D printer, or CNC machine, that is using RAMPS 1.4 with Pololu A4988 stepper drivers.

---OLDER KITS WITH 2.6kg/cm and 4.8kg/cm STEPPERS---
Smaller stepper's driver should be set between 0.2-0.35v.
Larger stepper's driver should be set between 0.4-0.65v.
Two smaller steppers on one axis should be set between 0.35-0.5v.

---NEWER KIT WITH 5.0kg/cm STEPPERS---
Single Motor -Tune to 0.7-0.9v
Dual Motors on one driver - Tune to 0.9-1.3v


*-----VOLTAGE BY PRINTER-----*

---OLDER KITS WITH 2.6kg/cm and 4.8kg/cm STEPPERS---
Folger Tech Prusa (both versions)
Small Stepper - Extruder/X -- 0.2-0.35v.
Large Stepper - Y -- 0.4-0.65v.
Two Steppers - Z -- 0.35-0.5v

Folger Tech Kossel
Small Stepper - X/Y/Z -- 0.2-0.35v.
Large Stepper - Extruder -- 0.4-0.65v.

Folger Tech Cloner
Small Stepper - X/Z/Extruder(s) -- 0.2-0.35v.
Large Stepper - Y -- 0.4-0.65v.

---NEWER KITS WITH 5.0kg/cm STEPPERS---
FT-5 (Uses 6 Larger Motors that are even bigger than the others)
X/Extruder - Single Motor -Tune to 0.7-0.9v
Y/Z - Dual Motors on one driver - Tune to 0.9-1.3v

CLONER, KOSSEL, and PRUSA
Single Motor -Tune to 0.7-0.9v
Dual Motors on one driver - Tune to 0.9-1.3v

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Closed Caption:

hey whats up guys ladies and gentlemen
boys and girls welcome to the most
requested video I've ever had
this is going to be how to tune this
stepper drivers for well the holder tech
printers obviously but the any 3d
printer that uses the ramps 1.4 and
Baloo aid
what is it 9 9 8 or whatever it is
stepper drivers
the process is pretty much the same for
any printer that uses those thank you
for letting me just so yeah this is made
this is going to be on the folder tech
printers that I have but the process
should be the same if your printer uses
the same control board and ramps and all
that kind of stuff so to start off
number one I'm not responsible if you
screw something up okay okay good
number two you don't necessarily need to
do this but I recommended highly
recommended but the printer will still
work if you've done it very if you
haven't done it honey
actually this is my prusa this is the
sweet return of my person in a video
mainly because it has the easiest access
to the board and i actually have never
tuned the stepper drivers I don't think
and I've had this printer going for a
year and a half almost two years
coming up on two years in a couple
months so yeah I've never had issues
with it
the water's get a little bit hot you
know harder than they should
which is a big thing of tuning the
stepper drivers and if you're having
skipping problems or the drivers stepper
drivers are getting weight of the
steppers themselves are getting way too
hot
that is tuning several drivers are going
to help you quite a bit
so yeah let's begin first off you're
going to need the ceramic screwdriver
this did come with a at least if you
have more recent kit i know it came with
them
I believe it came with the older ones as
well its got a ceramic head on it
the reason you use this is so you don't
accidentally slip and fri one of the the
driver boards
now you can get away with using a
regular metal drill bit or just chillin
screwdriver like a jeweler's screwdriver
or something like that but you have to
be a little bit careful
it's recommended to use one of these two
ceramic is not conductive but like i
said i've used the regular metal screw
drivers is like a small one and it will
work just fine you just have to be
really careful
so make sure you are being careful the
next thing you're going to need which
you should already know this is a
multimeter that can read millivolts
pretty much every multimeter cam almost
a voltmeter will work as well I mistake
people make doing this though is they'll
go and say oh well this needs to be
tunes - I don't know . 35 volts or 300
millivolts
so let's go over and sit at 200
millivolts because that's mobile trait
know that means on this setting that the
max you can read is 200 millivolts the
settings on here is the max you can read
on that setting so unless you're tuning
your Stepford your small step for
drivers really low 200 millivolts is
going to be too low
three that so set it to 2 volts if you
have a multimeter like that two volts is
a good setting
you shouldn't really anything higher
than that and it'll read just fine
i should also mention that my multimeter
stupid and doesn't get rid of the
decimal places that are not needed on
the setting so the decimal that we are
meeting for this is going to be this one
right here this is the two volts setting
so if you read any readings ignore these
decimal places might get used to not do
that but i think i damaged something at
some point and now it doesn't know what
to do so that is a decimal point that's
going to matter for our testing
so now that you've got the screwdriver
and you got the multimeter set up first
thing to do is going to be 41 this
make sure your printer works like this
should be the step you do after you've
printed test prints and you know you can
even print on normal just the stock
settings for a couple weeks
you know before you start doing this
make sure your printer actually works
if you have
done that yet go ahead and you know like
skip this and don't even do this stuff
set up your printer get it printing get
it pretty reliably then you want to step
these set these stepper drivers because
if you go and you haven't even started
up the printer yet
and you know you go to do this and then
something works then you're going to
confuse and that's not going to be very
good
so make sure that you actually you know
tested the printer and the printer
actually works and everything's working
right
so yes that's what you need to do main
thing you gotta look for here is that
for most of the printers
you're going to have four stepper
drivers that you need to tune the only
exception is going to be the dual extra
version of the cloner the cloner folder
Tech has the second extruder driver
right here and the second extruder
driver is a you know obviously you got a
tune that too but if you're just using a
producer of the castle or the single
extruder version of the cloner you
should just only have four stepper
drivers to tune in order
this bottom one down here is going to be
the X this middle one right here is
going to be the why and the top one
right here is going to be the Z
depending on your orientation depending
on the printer
you just want to you know orient this to
where you see it as i as i have it here
you know or just follow along just use
some spatial reasoning this one down
here is going to be extruder 0 which is
going to be the default extruder under
most cases
so this one right here is extruded 0 and
then if you had an extruder and driver
here or using a dual exterior printer
this would be exterior one right here if
you have a board that has the extruder
dry or the several driver right here
that's fine you don't necessarily have
to you don't have to tune it if you're
not using it but if you are using a new
look shooter then that's where it's
going to be and that's where you're
going to be tuning that second extra so
now that I've explained all that so the
next big thing you want to do is know
what you need to have these stepper
drivers set - that's going to depend a
lot on the design of the printer
what's motors are on it if you have even
upgraded the motors are the steppers
then you know you're gonna have to go
off of that but the good rule of thumb
is if the access uses a small stepper
driver
I'm pretty much there's only two in any
of the kids there's a small step for
drivers on the larger ones
if you're that access uses the small
stepper driver set it to between . - and
. 3 volts
if the axis uses the larger stepper
driver like on the pro side here the
y-axis uses the larger stepper set that
to between . for and point 6 volts and
for example the z axis on the person who
uses the two of the smaller stepper
drivers and they're running our this
I keep seeing several drivers the z axis
on this process I uses two of the
smaller steppers
so it's running a the two steppers off
of one driver so you'll want to set that
one too
I think it's . 3 2.4 something like that
those taxes isn't used all that much so
it doesn't need a whole lot of voltage
just need enough to lift the thing up
and down but yeah that's basically it
it's basically between . 3 and . 45 or
something like that it kind of depends
on the printer
so going to go based off of that just
look at what motor is used on which axis
and determined based off of that i tend
to put any of the axes that use the
small motor by itself
i will set that too . 3 if I has the
larger stepper
i will set that too . 5 5.6 and for the
z axis
I usually set that 2.5 just so i know
it's not gonna have any issue driving
both motors and you can go lower but if
you don't have to worry a whole bunch
about the motors overheating or anything
because they're just used in short
spurts so setting that voltage isn't all
that bad
isn't all that important Lee
so now that you've known thats now that
you know what you're sending it to
I'll even put a little Moby information
in the description you can click if you
need you know you need to hear what I
just said in where you want to read it
in writing
I'll put that information there so yeah
next thing you need to do is if you have
everything wired you know the printer
works turn on the printer
I have mine already put on by the way I
should mention this is the older version
of the impreza the power supply does not
have auto shut off so the fans always
running and I have a cooling fan right
here that usually blows on the ramps so
it's running too so it's a little bit
noisy so I apologize for that but that's
the way that's so the first thing you
need to do is nowhere to probe you have
the red and the black probe on your
multimeter
now if you uh if you looked at the
tuning guide from folder tech or from
the reprap forms
there's a ground pin on the stepper
driver itself you can put the black- or
ground lead on - I don't recommend doing
that because it's very easy to slip and
short something out and damaged the
boards
so what I recommend doing is the green
ramps connector over here that's coming
directly from the power supply i
recommend is taking your black lead and
grounding it right to this one right
here
this farthest right terminal and should
be a negative from the power supply
you can haz ground the black lead right
onto that with no issue
it's a lot easier than trying to figure
out which pin on the stepper driver you
need to do and it's a lot easier to not
slip out or anything like that
just make sure you're doing it on the
black one with the black wire because
you might have done it differently but
make sure it's the lead that comes from
this is the negative output on the
on the power supply this should be the
negative input to the ranch board that
should be this one right here if you do
that you shouldn't have any issue at all
so assuming that you have the black lead
right there on the onto the green Rams
connector
the next thing you want to do is put the
red weed without being all shaky like me
right onto the potentiometer tour of the
stepper driver
it goes right onto the metal
potentiometer right there and not the
black bra that's the one who's holding
the red probe or the positive probe
depending on whatever you think is right
on top of the metal potentiometer on the
stepper driver itself is private right
onto their and with the black wire onto
the negative probe the negative terminal
that I showed you
you should get a reading on your
multimeter
so let me zoom out and show you that so
now i have the multimeter in frame so
black wires going to go down where i
showed you
it's getting a little bit of a kind of
voltage going back and forth and if i
probe the of the potentiometer to their
i get . 559 volts usually from the
factory the stepper drivers are set to
point 6 volts or 600 millivolts
so that's pretty much where it needs to
be so this is the z axis so I'm actually
going to turn that down ever so slightly
so what you want to do is take this
ceramic screwdriver and basically just a
little potentiometer that i showed you
stick it in there and just give it like
a quarter of a turn or maybe even an
eighth of a turn
let me speak as ooh man to show you that
in high definition
yeah so like I said take the screwdriver
to get right into the potentiometer see
how it's turning same sort of thing so
it usually three here by default so
we're going to turn it like an eighth of
a turn
just to see what it is
so now with a multimeter now the
multimeter back in frame
I'm going to probe it again
her so now it's a 2.48 which is pretty
close to the point five that i usually
go for so if you want to fine tune it
even closer you can but that's good
enough for me
another thing i should mention when
doing this is that some motors and some
drivers are a little bit different they
like a little more voltage or less
so if you turn it down a little bit and
it's all the sudden the stepper drivers
skipping a whole bunch or something like
that
you want to bump up the voltage a little
bit the voltages that i told you about
that i have listed in the description is
a good baseline but some steppers and
some drivers like a little bit more
voltage so as long as the stepper driver
at the stepper itself is not overheating
and you're not getting any skipping from
overheating
I'm just feel the stepper well it's
printing if it burns you then it's
probably a little too hot you won't turn
on the voltage but if you're getting a
lot of skipping in the stepper driver is
really cold or not really cold but it's
not getting hot
then you want to boot bump up the
voltage a little bit so for example i
said at the point 5 volts
if the z-axis start skipping at all on
my producer or on the motors are not
responding as well as they should then
i'll bump that up a little bit but that
should be a decent voltage for this so
that done that one
I'm going to take this and check the
y-axis now
there we go so that's . 59 which point 6
volts the y axis on the proof that uses
a large uses the the larger stepper so .
six is pretty okay all right
my probably recommend bumming it down
ever so slightly but that motor doesn't
get very hot
you know i'm going to bump it down just
a quarter of a turn
are not even a quarter of a turn just
just like a little less than an eighth
of a turn
so let me check it Merrill so I got that
their ago that there
so now at that point for nine
don't let me just just just ever so
slightly right there that should be
close to . 55 I believe it . 55 almost
on the dot I'm a thousandth of a
freaking volt off
so yeah like I just showed you all you
got to do is twist that little that
little potentiometer right there
this black wires on the way but you know
same sort of thing that potential we
really going to do is just turn it a
little bit
i should also mention that counter
clockwise is turning it down
clockwise is turning it up so yeah it's
basically just normal logic stuff so I
moved down a little bit we have the x
axis one right here so let me zoom in a
little bit just to get there
yeah , so let me check the x axis the x
axis on this printer that uses just a
small little motor so it should be quite
a bit lower than what it shows
Hey look I did to this one so you can
see here i have it set to .
- - which is perfectly fine for the x
axis if you can go between . - and . 3
volts on these little stepper motors
which is what the x-axis uses on this
printer so that's that's perfectly fine
of a voltage right there
if they if you notice like I said you
notice it's not getting very hot but
it's skipping bump it up a little bit
but . - 2.3 is usually the sweet spot
for that in the folder tech tuning guide
they recommend . 35 you can tune it
there and that's fine but for me it's a
little bit hot
i'm at least for the motors that i'm
using in this one
so last but not least is going to be
that extruder
let's see if i can get in there without
killing anybody
so yeah there we go right there so
that's point 27 which is going to be 2
270 millivolts that's on the extruder
which on the prusa is the smaller motor
for the smaller steppers so that's
perfectly fine
so like I said if you have your should
be . 6 all the way through
just take your little syrup screwdriver
turn down that's a little potentiometer
on and keep checking the voltage is turn
it like a quarter of a turn or an eighth
of a turn
check the voltage and keep doing that
until you're in the range that you need
to be in pretty much it's you know that
this know which motor is on which axis
and tune it based on that
turn based on the information I've said
or the information in the description
once you've checked all that and all the
voltages are good and you haven't shot
anything else
you shouldn't for one notice that the
steppers are a bit quieter
you'll also notice a lot less skipping
hopefully and just overall better
performance
the motor shouldn't eat up as much
anything like that let me hear and
let me turn off the lights so it's not
as noisy haha hear that anything you
hear is probably my computer
yeah anyway so yeah that's basically all
you have to do to me a stepper drivers
it's really easy as long as you don't
short anything out in the tuning guide
folder Tech has they recommend you use I
think it's this pin right here
i'm not mistaken that's a ground pin on
the stepper driver it's really difficult
to try to keep it on there and get the
potentiometer at the same time so i
really don't recommend doing that like I
said the black lead can go right to the
negative input on the ramps connector
and you're not going to have any issue
with that
and of course the red goes right on top
of the metal potentiometer right on the
driver board itself if you do that you
follow these directions you tune it to
the recommended spec that's gonna be
listed down below or what I've said you
shouldn't have any issue a lot of people
i should also mention don't follow the
voltage that i've listed
you don't necessarily have to use a
multimeter for this
if you notice that your drive your
steppers are really loud or they're
skipping a lot
some people will just go in here blindly
and tune down the steppers
you know just like a quarter of a turn
or an eighth of a turn and see how the
performance changes so involves them the
stepper that was making a lot of noise
is quieter or it doesn't skip any more
than there you go
it's recommended to be more accurate
with the multimeter but you can tune by
ear and some people call it just by
tuning you know just doing it like a
quarter turn down or up or whatever and
seeing how it affects performance so if
you don't have a multimeter you can get
away doing it that way but i do
recommend using a multimeter getting an
exact number
like i said if you tune it down and all
of a sudden it's you know still having
issues bump it up a little bit if it's
getting too hot but it down so on and so
forth
yeah that's basically it's so
hopefully this helps somebody hopefully
this helped the number of people because
it's a one thing I get a lot of this
tuning the stepper drivers it's pretty
it seems scary when you first have to do
it but it's not that difficult
so that's that's basically it hopefully
this helps you guys out sand
yeah I don't have much else to say
basically yeah thnkx for subscribers new
subscribers old subscribers those you
like these videos find helpful give me a
like so other people can see it
subscribe to the channel I have that but
like 440 subscribers or something like
that if i hit 500 i will be doing a
secret something giveaway of something
you'll find out at 500 subscribers so
thank you guys for subscribing or liking
or enjoying this video I'm going to stop
rambling on so yeah
information is in the description thank
you all for watching and until the next
video I will see y'all later