Dual Y-Axis Stepper Motors In Series on a Smoothie?

Controllers Smoothie
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I’m considering using a Smoothieboard on an older X-Carve 500mm chassis I have left over from when I upgraded.

I had been assuming that, as was done with the first generation X-Carve, I’d run both Y-Axis motors in series from a single stepper driver. But to my surprise, I’ve found very little information about wiring a Smoothie with two steppers in series. All the documentation is centered around the parallel configuration, or using off-board steppers for dual stepper set ups.

Is there something about the drivers used on the Smoothie that make this an undesirable option? The X-Carve’s tiny gshield used DRV8818s and they seem to handle it fine. I’ve been looking through the data sheet of the A5984, but I haven’t seen a warning about serial motor connections.

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That’s because it’s completely unrelated to Smoothie.

The instructions on this are the same for every controller in the world, and they are instructions about the motor, not about the driver.

Just ask Google about in-series wiring of stepper motors, and you’ll have all the information you need.

The documentation talks more about parallel wiring simply because serial wiring is pretty rare, that’s it.

There is zero issue with doing series wiring with Smoothie, for certain.

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Thank you so much for your reply Arthur.