Slaving Y axis motor

[coyspurs (Mike Cork)]

Hi all,
I have built my own laser with linear rails and an MKS dlc 32 v2.1 board with 2 y axis connections. I have two y motors but cannot see in Lightburn any way of slaving Y motor. Is it possible to use A motor in machine settings as the 2nd y motor. If not are there any suggestions to using 2 y motors. Many thanks

[berainlb (PY)]

LightBurn does not control motors directly. It will only be sending movement commands. The job of motor configuration will be in the firmware.

Assume you’re using GRBL. You’ll need to set your compile time configurations to enable slaved Y.

[coyspurs (Mike Cork)]

Thank you for your reply, will start some research

Regards Mike

[mfl_jr (Mike Leimer)]

I think on that board you just plug it in and go. It looks like it hardware clones the Y-axis pins. Neither Lightburn nor GRBL know anything about it. I have a similar board and operates exactly this way.

The giveaway is only one Y-axis stepper driver. If there were two there then it is possible that GRBL might need to be involved but with only one I’m almost 100% sure the Y1 and Y2 are hardware level clones of each other.

[berainlb (PY)]

So you’re thinking that Y1, Y2 are in parallel sharing the same driver? Curious how that would work with voltage splitting and current draw. This seems like it would be problematic although I may be missing something.

[coyspurs (Mike Cork)]

Hi Mike, I think you are right as they are both turning in the correct directions but they are jerky not at all smooth. The steppers are NEMA 23s and I don’t think the 2209s can cope. I have some 6600s so I will put one on tomorrow and see if it handles it.

Many thanks for your input

[mfl_jr (Mike Leimer)]

@berainlb

So you’re thinking that Y1, Y2 are in parallel sharing the same driver? Curious how that would work with voltage splitting and current draw. This seems like it would be problematic although I may be missing something.

Yes, this design is less than ideal it does simply split the output between both steppers. It’s also fairly common from what I’ve seen and while definitely not optimal, if the loads and speeds are kept low I have had decent experience using boards that operate this way.

@coyspurs

Hi Mike, I think you are right as they are both turning in the correct directions but they are jerky not at all smooth. The steppers are NEMA 23s and I don’t think the 2209s can cope. I have some 6600s so I will put one on tomorrow and see if it handles it.

I’ve only ever tried to drive NEMA 17’s off one of these boards, sorry I have no idea how/if they will cope with NEMA 23’s, particularly two of them at once.

Glad you’re making progress.