I have recently purchased an HG08 breakout board which connects to a U300 motion controller to run my newly built Ox cnc. I am a woodworker and a little embarrased as my electrical knowledge is pathetic compared to a lot of you on here, hence my asking for help. The HG08 breakout board supports 5 axis, I have 4 nema stepper motors to connect to the board each of which has 4 wires, red, green, yellow, blue. On the breakout board each stepper motor input has GND, VCC, CKA-D, CWC, ENA-D. I do not have a clue what wire does what on the stepper motor nor do I know what goes to where on the breakout board. I know you can connect a voltage meter to the stepper motor or connect and pair stepper motor wires to check resistance but that still does not help me detemine where each wire goes as I do not understand CKA etc abbreviations on the breakout board. If someone knows what wire goes to what that would be a massive help. Also, on the controller boards I have seen there is a clone drive for the second Y axis stepper, presumerably on this it just goes into one of the spare A or B inputs as there is no clone?. Cheers in advance.
A breakout board serves are a means of communication between your computer and your machine. A breakout sends signals to a separate unit called a driver. The driver is what controls the stepper. Each stepper has its own driver.
You also need to figure out which wire is paired with which. Pick a wire. Hold one of the other three to that wire. Try to turn the motor. If it is extremely hard to turn, that is a pair. If not, pick another wire. The Ox build videos go through many of the intricacies of building a CNC to include finding wire pairs. If your motor turns the wrong way, pick one wire pair and reverse their hook-ups to the board.
Well that clears that up, I have obviously overlooked that another bit of kit is needed, in fact 4 bits of kit, oh dear. Thanks for the spot Kevon. So what exactly is the advantage of having a setup that has a Motion control board, Breakout board and drivers verses something like the Xpro3 where everything is on one board?.
Thanks Giarc, I am out of my comfort zone with electrics as you can tell and have spent so long building the Cnc that I have mentally hit the wall, and it now looks like I need additional bits but hey ho. I will take your advice thanks for the help.
Benefit is drivers(depends which you get) can power a more powerfull stepper motors compared to xpro and they might even run them smoother.
...and if you burn out a stand alone driver it's no big deal to replace. Not quite the case with built-in drivers.
