@OwenD

Thanks, man, I don't know why I did not find that outfit in my searches.

And since they are a Canadian business I know they are the ones that supplied the printer maker.

Based on reading their docs ( a little) I think my original supposition might be correct,

that (in this implementation) the closed-loop motors are a drop-in upgrade and the 12 pin connectors are just being used as the easiest way to interface with them. I had hoped that a photo would let me see if only some of the traces linked up to the connector interface cards but I can't see (photo below).

Since this started as a Kickstarter campaign I'm pretty sure they were doing things as cheaply as possible.
And buying premade cabling and some motherboard connectors would be the cheapest way to go vs. making up custom cables that only connected the pins that were actually used.

As I mentioned prior, the ability to add a closed-loop daughter card to the back of a stepper motor and then update a few parameters and have it be driven by the existing motherboard leads me to believe that the added capability is in the daughtercard board and in the case of the Cool Muscle motor it's just internal.

And they did not have different firmware files for whether you had the original stepper motors or the CM.

I think any updating/tweaking was only done through the terminal.

But I will check with the Canadian distributor to see what they say.

Thanks again for the very useful link.

M./

Think the forum has a problem with too many images in one post.

Here are the others.

Thanks for the advice. He may have just had his name screened onto a generic board. I will follow up with the motor maker to see if they will give me some info since I own 7 of them. I remember that the upgrade for the 7 motors was about $2K.

The part of this discussion that confused me was that the current trend towards adding on the little closed-loop circuits to the back of the motors still used the standard cable from the boards. So it seemed to me that all of the upgrading needed to offer the closed-loop performance was in the add-on circuit and that perhaps all of that was just housed in the Cool Muscle motors.

Here are some photos of the board.

Any and all help is much appreciated.

Thanks,

M./


Thanks much for the reply.

I did find a drawing in their support area for a model is the same series as I have.

Mine are 17C and the drawing is for 17E but I would have to think they would not change the pinouts, just have improvements internally.

So, if I use the right pins, I might be able to use the motors on a printer with a board with the normal 4 or 5 pin connectors?

Also, is there a forum that someone could recommend for listing the printer or the motors for sale?

The units are fairly specialized so Craigslist doesn’t seem like it would be the right venue.

Again, thanks for the advice.

M./

Hello, could not decide which subforum this should go in, so posting here.

I have a 5 extruder printer from a now-defunct Canadian company. As I was a neophyte when I bought it I was oversold and ended up upgrading to 7 high-end closed-loop motors.

I never used 4 of the extruders and now I seem to be having problems with the proprietary mainboard.

I am contemplating moving to a new motherboard and selling off the extra 4 motors or selling off the whole printer to someone with more technical expertise than I have.

My question is - can the Duet boards drive the closed-loop motors? they have 12 pin connectors.

Is it just a different cable that is required (and some FW updating)?

The site for the motors claims that you can control the motors off a USB and a laptop so I do not understand the need for the 12 wires. Perhaps they are a generic connector that allows for added control?

Any help/tips/advice is appreciated.

Thanks,

M./