STEP-BY-STEP: Installation of SilentStepStick-Drivers on UMO

[ataraxis 51]

@drayson: just write and "@" before the name

Hum, sounds weird :Dare you totally sure?^^

The movement that you see in the video is caused by a "not defined pin state" at the startup (it's not "controlled" by the program but its a sideffect of the bootloader).

There are at least three ways to prevent this movement. First is via RST (which is not used in this way on the Ultimaker). The Second is to delete the bootloader and upload MARLIN via an ISP-Programmer (if you have one). The third one is the EN-Pin. To prevent this movement, EN is normally "pulled up" (and therefore the stepper is deactivated) until the arduino wants the stepper to move.

My guess is therefore: your Arduino does not pull up the EN (as it should) on the Extra Driver.

To confirm that, please do the following: Measure the Voltage between the EN-Pin-Socket on the Mainboard (remove the driver, you can use a piece of wire for measurement) and GND (e.g. on the Mainboard, near the LED).

Start the machine. What does it read? Can you maybe take a video of the feeder and the the voltmeter at the startup?

This is how it should look like:

Does the movement happen before the display-text appears?

Edited March 7, 2016 by Guest

[drayson 75]

@ataraxis, (thank you, works :-) )

ok, I made the measurement and created two videos - one of the movement, one of the value reading.

it seems that unpowered (pluf in but not ON) the value is 0.022V (I guess that´s the cap),

when powering the UMO, the reading goes up to 4.96V.

Unfortunately I have no idea how to post them so I´ll send you a PM with a direct link to my share.

Edited March 6, 2016 by Guest

[ataraxis 51]

Heya, I edited my last answer in the meanwhile?

Does the movement happen before the Text appears on the ulticontroller?

[drayson 75]

Yes, the movement happens before the text appears at the UC.

[ataraxis 51]

Ah yes... EN is still LOW until the text appears.

I tried it on my machine and it's the same here on Extruder 2.

I never understood why they didn't installed a PullUp on the EN-Pin (to deactivate the stepper until we need it), the A4988 even has a PullDOWN installed (why?).

Anyway,... The SSS does not have any Resistor integrated on EN, you could therefore simply add one yourself (yeah, I know it's ugly but at least it works):

EN<->Vio: 10kOhm (more or less,...) - do it on your own Risk

EDIT: Mr. Watterott told me, and he is obviously right, that 10kOhm is maybe a bit too borderline, if you have one, prefer a lower resitor (I guess around 4,7kOhm).

... what I don't understand is, why it doesn't happen with the A4988... hum.

Btw.: do you have an AVR mkII?

Edited March 9, 2016 by Guest

[drayson 75]

Ok, understood - SSS no internal PullUp

But: why the other drivers act not the same? They should - or is the IO at the UM Board or Arduino different for E1?

No, unfortunately no AVR available. Why?

[ataraxis 51]

The other driver is naturally connected to other pins on the Arduino. The Pins are set to INPUT on startup and remain in this state until the bootloader is finished... but i don't know why it affects only some of the pins (STP of Extra Extruder).

Okay, no mkII - but maybe an arduino or buspirate?

You could then simply delete the bootloader and upload the firmware directly, this should also fix the problem.

Or maybe we can change the bootloader?

[drayson 75]

Hmmm.... don´t think it is a good idea to mess with the bootloader.

To have also a "simple" solution for other people with the same issue is - I guss - preferred...

I will try to solder a resistor :-)

[drayson 75]

Do you think Mr. Watterott could have an idea why the A4988 does not show this behavior?

[ataraxis 51]

I really think hard about it but until now I don't know it - anyway - we will find it out in the end, that's for sure

Concerning Watterott... I don't want to bother him with too many questions (I'm sure i have to ask a lot for the TM2130 this or next week) - but, sure, you can ask him if you want

Edited March 8, 2016 by Guest

[ataraxis 51]

i will analyze the signals this evening with a logicsniffer, will tell you if i know more

edit: unfortunately I wasn't able to capture the signals with my low-budget logicsniffer until now, i really should buy a digital oscilloscope

@drayson: does it work for YOU on the UMO?

Edited March 9, 2016 by Guest

[drayson 75]

@ataraxis, currently on he way soldering the stuff - hold on a minute :-)

edit:

seems to work on my UMO but the question is how to check if it´s really working as my FW has just a "move Extruder" without selection... :-(

Think I have to find somebody assisting me in implementing a Heat T1 and Move T1... :-)

edit:

no chance to check the extruder movement without printing something. Will take a little....

Edited March 8, 2016 by Guest

[ataraxis 51]

@drayson: good idea! maybe we can integrate that in bulles online-builder (https://bultimaker.bulles.eu/) or even the marlin fork he uses.

edit:

I tried again: whether this movement happens or not depends on the pin where STP is connected to. on my arduino uno it does happen e.g. at 5 but not on 13. That explains why it happens on the Extruder1 but not on E0.

The mentioned jumper really fixed it. if you have one, use 4,7kOhm instead 10kOhm (or maybe even lower - Mr. Watterott wrote an eMail to me and told me that 10kOhm is the upper limit - since the TMC uses internal pullups and pulldowns itself, to determine what the pin is set to).

Edited March 9, 2016 by Guest

[drayson 75]

I learned today that this function (each feeder/heater separate) is alredy implemented in the latest Marlin FW available at github...

Regarding resistor - have one, will try :-)

Thank you very much for your assistance!!!!!

[drayson 75]

DAMN.... so silent... that´s bad - I can hear that I have to grease the axis :-)

@ataraxis, thank you again for support - I successfully portet my UMO into the silent space.

I can recommend this mod without any doubt.

Mission accomplished :-)

[maartenw 6]

Wauw! What a silent machine I got!

I exchanged the drivers for the X and Y axis only, and now the noise of the (SilentFan) is the 'only' noise I hear. On purpose I did not replace the drivers for the Z and E1/E2 motors.

At Vref=0.8 the motors did not move stable, now at Vref=1.2 the print is running smoothly.

I exchanged the wire positions for the X and Y motors as described by @mariuszem.

This way I can at all times still use the firmware as delivered with CURA.

@ataraxis : thank you so much for making my UMO a more user-friendly machine!

[catohagen 41]

Huge thanks for this writeup

Installed on X/Y/E on my UMO, aand its fantastic

[thevoltmaster 12]

Completed this today. Thanks so much for the writeup, its like a whole new machine.

[plasmasolutions 0]

Just want to chime in and say "thanks so much for the writeup, ataraxis". I just ordered my silent drivers and am totally amazed that there are still makers which optimize and pimp the Ultimaker original. Will report back when everything's installed.

I bought my printer ~4 years ago (back in the time it was just called Ultimaker) and installed a heated print bed recently, am printing the UM2 extruder right now and the "near frictionless" spool holder. It's really great to have you all here, helping with upgrades and inventing new things.

Thanks so much for all the ideas and joy!

Thomas

edit: The stepper drivers arrived and I installed X,Y and E. It's fabulous! Never thought that the UMO could be that silent. WAF + 1000

Edited October 1, 2016 by Guest

[eugen360 0]

Hello,

Can someone please tell me if this modification must be done also for mounting on RAMPS board? (I have read somewhere that also Marlin must be reconfigured...)

Thanks a lot!

[gr5 2,172]

The only difference to Marlin is the steps/mm.  Some newer versions of Marlin let you set that in the menus.  Or you can change it with gcodes and save that into eeprom.  Since you can do it in gcodes you could use pronterface to send the gcodes one at a time (one for changing, then a M500 for saving to eeprom) or you can use a text editor to put the 2 gcodes needed into a text file, rename it a.gcode and "print" the file and that will update the steps/mm.  So you don't need to modify marlin.  Just change steps/mm.

 

Also note that Marlin can only put out 40,000 steps per second (on all axes at once) so on a Ultimaker original, 2 or 3, if you go from the current 16 microsteps to 256 microsteps, the top speed will go from 500mm/sec down to 62mm/sec.  Unless the driver has an interpolate mode (some do).  But things won't be as smooth in interpolate mode with Marlin's "quad stepping" feature.

[eugen360 0]

gr5 Thank you very much for your answer, although it's a little bit too high for me (I do not have a very high level of knowledge in 3D printing ) and I need sometime to read twice to understand something... So, I can start modifying the drivers...

[halfie 8]

On 1/13/2018 at 3:17 AM, gr5 said:

Also note that Marlin can only put out 40,000 steps per second (on all axes at once) so on a Ultimaker original, 2 or 3, if you go from the current 16 microsteps to 256 microsteps, the top speed will go from 500mm/sec down to 62mm/sec.  Unless the driver has an interpolate mode (some do).  But things won't be as smooth in interpolate mode with Marlin's "quad stepping" feature.

 

Hi gr5, I picked up an ultiboard2 clone from aliexpress, named "v2.1.5" specifically to try out the TMC2100's. The board actually comes with individual micro jumper switches, much like the jumpers on the Ultimaker Original 1.5.7 board, but for each stepper driver! This means that you can install the trinamic drivers with M1 and M2 in off and M3 in on (if I'm reading the first post right).

 

The question is: will this maximum speed of 62mm/s still apply if the jumpers are switched to Full Step mode (m1/m2 off, m3 on)? Or is this speed limit scenario specifically because of the 16 microsteps that are used by default? 

[ataraxis 51]

@Nicolinux (or any other moderator): Can somebody tell me why the pictures are gone on the first post?

[JohnInOttawa 104]

I know this thread is getting very old, but I will finally be installing TMC2100 on my UMO today.  I will change X, Y and hopefully Z but will leave the extruder alone for now.   I can do everything in this (excellent!) thread, except adjust Z steps/mm  to  1066.6666.  As my leadscrew is not for the heated bed and I am not certain it is original ( I bought this second hand) I may just have to write down the existing number and double it.

I'm trying to use the online firmware maker here https://bultimaker.bulles.eu/

 

I see the discussion above on modifying this with GCode, but as I seldom work at that level, would appreciate the syntax for setting, then saving the new steps/mm  @gr5, would you be in a position to share this?

 

Thanks!

John