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A project log for Quiet Printrbot

Adding external microstepping drivers to a 2014 Printrbot Simple Metal

christopherChristopher 05/13/2018 at 15:130 Comments

Well I thought I had (months ago) linked this project to the makerspace wiki page where the details are, and hadn't. Whoops.

As the project title states, this is all an attempt to make my Printrbot Simple Metal quieter, namely by using Trinamic stepper drivers in StealthChop mode.

Originally I had planned to retrofit the new Printrboard G2, since I had heard it would use Trinamic drivers. Alas, when it arrived DRV8825's were installed. Oh well, I don't really care for the state of 32 bit printing software right now anyway.

So the next idea was to modify my existing Printrboard F4 to use external drivers. I know the board has some gpio pins brought out to headers, but the details of setting it all up got a little hairy. See that wiki page for details. The good news is that my modified Marlin firmware works! The bad news is that my breadboarded TMC2130's almost burned my house down, and I set the project aside.

Now I'm back to see if I can make it all work a little better and throw together some PCBs for the drivers to be seated in.

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