Safe settings to start with for Pancake stepper motor

[SoDamnInsane]

Last week I bought a, almost new, Ender 5 Plus. Due several circumstances, I couldn't do anything with 3D Printing for 6 years. And I realized that I have forgotten a lot!

Now I want to upgrade the printer with a Duet2 Wifi Mainboard and a direct drive extruder. I have al the parts laying around for about 6 years. So the documents for these parts are lost during these years. There are no Brand or other specs visible on the Pancake stepper motor. And I can hardly remember what I did yesterday, so I can't remember the specs.

What are the best and safest settings in the firmware, to start with?

Thank you in advance!

[droftarts]

@SoDamnInsane Take a picture of the stepper motor and post it here. Measure the body; if it's a NEMA 17, it should be 42.3mm in width and height, but knowing the length would be good. If you have a multimeter, check the resistance of the coils, and report that too. That may help find something similar, for an initial setting of the motor current. Most pancake steppers are quite low current (0.7A to 1A, eg https://www.bondtech.se/product/nema17-25mm-stepper-motor-18mm-o-shaft/) so setting it to 500mA is probably safe, ie M906 [axis letter]500.

Next would be to determine if it's a 1.8° (200 full steps per revolution) or 0.9° (400 full steps per revolution) stepper motor. Try the following, for example, connecting the motor to the Duet 2 X axis (make sure the phases are correctly connected, see https://docs.duet3d.com/en/User_manual/Connecting_hardware/Motors_connecting

M569 P0 S1 D2    ; driver 0 goes forwards (X axis)
M584 X0          ; set drive mapping
M906 X500        ; set motor currents (mA) and motor idle factor in per cent
M350 X16         ; configure microstepping with interpolation
M92 X80          ; set steps per mm
M566 X900        ; set maximum instantaneous speed changes (jerk) (mm/min)
M203 X6000       ; set maximum speeds (mm/min)
M201 X500        ; set accelerations (mm/s^2)
M564 S0 H0       ; allow movement of axes that have not been homed and allow movement outside boundaries 

Then send G91 G1 X40 G90 to move the motor. If it does a full rotation, it's a 1.8° (200 full steps per revolution) motor, if it does half a rotation, it's a 0.9° (400 full steps per revolution) stepper motor.

Beyond that, it's difficult to get more information on a stepper motor if you can't find the specification/data sheet, though it may not actually help that much anyway, as you'll want to tune the motor to the job it has to do. You can increase the current in steps until the motor starts getting warm to find the current limit. You can tune the jerk, max speed and accelerations until the motor skips. Then just use it!

Ian

[SoDamnInsane]

@droftarts Thank you ver y much!

It is a NEMA 17, that's for sure.
I have the stepper motor installed, so to take a picture is difficult, sorry.
But it looks exactly the same as the one on the picture below.

I'm upgrading a Ender 5 Plus with a Duet2 Wifi, so all the other Stepper motors are from Creality.
I asked a question yesterday, if i could use the same connectors, and just plug them on the Duet2 Wifi.
The answer was that i didn't have to change anything.
So i checked the pancake stepper motor, and it has exactly the same pinout as all the other stepper motors.

Is it correct that this pancake don't use that much current? Because it's used for the extruder (Titan Aero).
I only have to connect the Mosfet and PSU. Then i can power it all up, and hope for the best.

Thank you very much for all the info!!

[Phaedrux]

Could you search your email for a sales receipt perhaps?

[SoDamnInsane]

@Phaedrux Sorry, for my late reply! I was very busy the past 2 days. I found a old config file. I'm using the same settings. Now i have another problem with the Fans. But i will post a new question for this.