motor stuttering and seizing

[dindunuffin]

Hello....
its been awhile since I dropped in here, looks like I can say the same for others too.

Anyway, just in case anyone is still monitoring, I have a stuttering motors question.
I tripped over my usb cable, darn near ripped it out, but it kept working yesterday.  Today, its stuttering bad in certain places and sometimes just seizes and stutters.  From what I've read it would appear  this is probably a board problem.  Can you actually damage the motors themselves?  I have moved the gantry some while everything was plugged in, I also know that is a no-no too.

Anyway, its an old small Eleksmaker so I'm sure I'll have to get a new model driver board, any suggestions?  cheap, inexpensive, low-cost, good enough?

btw, I ordered a new Two Tree TT-5.5 for Cyber-Monday to replace it, but I'd like to keep this one running too.

[dindunuffin]

I'll update my own post here.  I switch the two driver boards, x to y1/y2.  Now it works better, its still stuttering but much less.  The  driver moved from my x to my y was obviously the problem and for the life of me I can't understand how switching to on the board makes any difference, but it is functioning better for some reason.  Moving it from driving a single motor to driving two motors would make it worse not better you'd think. Oh well, its good for spare parts I guess.

[ggallant571]

Did you measure/set the current limit? Two motors will require approximately twice the current of a single.

[dindunuffin]

I did not do that. I'm not sure how to measure the current sent of the motors nor do I know what parameters I'd be looking for anyway.
I can stick a voltage meter in an outlet or between point A and point B for voltage, but not sure how to measure current on micro-electronics. 

Based on that fact, you stated, which makes sense,  I would assume that the driver for my X axis was overdriving because it was heavily stuttering and sezing on that axis, but when I switched it and put it on the Y1/Y2 axis, its much better behaved, very little stuttering.  What would cause it to start over driving for no reason at all? I haven't done anything.

Thanks for the comments.

[ggallant571]

Are there 2 motors on one axis and 1 on the other?

[dindunuffin]

Yes, one on the X and two on the Y. Its an old Eleksmaker A5, the small one.

[ggallant571]

Then I would expect the driver with two motors to need to supply approx twice the current. Just swapping without setting the current limits might give unexpected results.

[dindunuffin]

To my surprise it solved the problem for the most part doing nothing more than switching the two modules. I ordered a few new A4988 driver modules and will experiment with those too. 

[ggallant571]

Need to set the current limits.

[dindunuffin]

I'll watch some youtube videos and do that. At least for now its working smoothly.  Thanks for the help.