TMC2208 Vs A4988 Stepper Motor Driver Sound Level Comparison
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ต.ค. 2020
- TMC2208 stepper motor drivers are a popular choice for reducing the stepper motor noise on 3D printers and laser cutters, particularly because they are able to easily replace the A4988 drivers which are commonly used. I wanted to test them out against the A4988 drivers to see how much quieter they actually are. The results were quite surprising!
Here's a link to the write up of the test - www.the-diy-life.com/tmc2208-...
Buy TMC2208 (5 Pack) - amzn.to/3j78RMR
Buy A4988 (5 Pack) - amzn.to/3o0sABv
If you've got any project, tutorial, or review ideas, let me know in the comments section. - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
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That's insane man! I use stepper motors for my DIY EQ mount for astronomy and my biggest pet peeve have been the vibrations when using an A4988. I had no idea there were almost silent alternatives. I assume these produce WAY less vibrations too. Great video.
I actually found these in a search for some quieter drivers for a camera slider which I’ve been working on - it’s almost complete now. But yes they’re almost completely silent in the footage now and there’s virtually no vibration either. They’d be great for astronomy!
@@MichaelKlements Thanks for your answer. I just ordered a couple.
@@Zwettekop my diy mount guides at around 0.9" RMS with tmc2209s
@@Zwettekop I want to make my own star tracker too. Can you help me with it?
@@hasanagera Do you have a 3D printer? I have a design with and without one.
Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!
WOW! I'm using an A4988 in a project right now and was trying to make my stepper quieter. Didn't realize it would be as simple as changing the driver. Thanks for this video!
did you just change the drivers and it worked?
@@ytskt Yes, you can swap in the 2208 directly if you had an A4988 in there. Only thing I had to change was that direction is opposite and there's 8x more steps per revolution.
simple, efficient, at the top! Continue .
Amazing, just what I needed to know. I have added microstepping to my A4988 circuit to try to reduce the noise, but its clear I really need a TMC2208. Thanks 😀 👍
Yes, definitely get the TMC2208 if you need a silent or very smooth stepper driver.
i jsut did it yesterday and its amazing, at first i thought it didnt work but you just dont hear it move :D
Yeah, its quite impressive how well it works! I also thought mine wasn't working until I noticed the shaft slowly turning.
Clear, concise and well presented. Subscribed, and going to look at your other videos. Thanks!
Thanks for the great feedback Luke!
Thanks for putting this in such a Well-done comparison test 💕👍
Thank you, I'm glad it was helpful
...And thanks for the Ard sketch to control the pot !
the info on the TMC2208 was decisive, but also watching someone throw together a board and bust out a useful circuit to test is always helpful (and amazing) ! ~liked ~subd
Thanks for the feedback and support!
TH-cam software detected some music while you were speeding up the motor. You were even close to an automatic copyright strike.
Haha
Very interesting indeed. But with less noise, might also come less Holding & Running Torques.
And if it was confirmed to drive step motors at lower torque values, this could be the key-decision factor to induce positioning failures in many projects.
How to test: Simulating a winch of a wirewound in that pulley, lifting an adjustable weight of a plastic cup (rice filled), could provide a simple comparison.
Thanks for sharing.
There shouldn't be any torque loss as long as the TMC2208 driver is producing the same amount of current that the A4988 driver was. But yes you could test this with a pulley of a known diameter lifting an adjustable weight.
Just what I needed to see. Was searching for how to implement these drivers with a standard Arduino or Arduino compatible board for an upcoming project of mine. Might need to design my first PCB. Thanks for the information and inspiration!
That's great, thanks for the feedback! Have a look at my recent camera slider project if you're thinking of designing your own PCB for an Arduino and these TMC drivers. It's not perfect, but it gets the job done.
@@MichaelKlements will do!
Great video and blog post! Have you used the UART connection on the TMC2208? I'm having trouble wiring it up and I'd love any tips.
I haven't given this a try. I also haven't been able to find much documentation on how to do it. Let me know if you do manage to find anything or get one running!
@@MichaelKlements will do. I definitely burned a board but I think I've fixed some of the issues. I'll post again when I get it to work. It seems like a perfect combo: wifi/ ble and silent stepper drivers.
@@evanlane1690 hi there! any progress in getting the UART connection working? I'm interested too. thanks!
@@pgabrieli I did get it to work!
I opened an issue here: github.com/teemuatlut/TMCStepper/issues/192 and teemuatlut was kind enough to show a picture of the wiring and share code. It works for me. I modified the pinout and the code, but I think what they listed there works. Good luck and let me know if it doesn't work for you. I'll try to help.
Hi, very good demo and well explained.
I have question, I made a pen plotter using GRBL servo + CNC Shield V3 (normal shield with UNO) and A4988 as the drivers, it works fine but it's so loud, I have plan to change A4988 with TMC2208. So, can I just swap them ? id there any other thing I need to do before changing them ?
Thanks
Most of the time you can use them as a direct drop in replacement. Depending on the shields circuitry, you might need to add a jumper or bridge on the enable pin. Some have these pins brought out on pins that you can physically put a jumper over and some don't - they might be routed to one of the digital IO pins.
Fascinating.
@Michael Klements: Do you know how you can avoid the "PACKKK" from the motor (at 2:50min) when powering up the driver ? I also have this but with my NEMA23 it's really loud ... This is for sure not good for the Motor/Driver. I have a big stepper driver which is powered up (also Arduino) when switching on my main supply.
That noise is usually just the rotor aligning with the magnetic field of the coils. Its not "bad" for the motor and unfortunately I don't think there is really any way around this. The rotor is free to rotate when the coils are de-energized and will "jump" into place as soon as the driver is powered up and coils are energized again. Unless they happen to be aligned by chance, you'll always get a bit of a knock on startup.
Very Good Video ! but i am facing some issues that my Stepper motor is not running.How could i solve this? I am using A4988 driver and Arduino Nano and stepper of 0.8amp and 1.7 V printed on it . Also i want to ask that if this problem can be solve by using Rotary encoder then can u plz tell the code for this? and also can i use 12V 10 amp supply for my whole project to run safely (will it kill my Arduino Nano or not and to run this stepper motor)? Thank You!
It would be interesting to see the comparsion of the two output signals on an oscilloscope to see the difference optical side by side.
That’s a nice idea, I’ve never thought of comparing the output signals on a scope
Someone did that already: th-cam.com/video/eIBICCzayio/w-d-xo.html
Hi Michael, do you happen to have the program to test these drivers? I'm having quite a problem with the TMC2208
My camera slider project uses them and has a circuit diagram to show how they are connected - www.the-diy-life.com/diy-motorised-camera-slider-with-object-tracking/
iv just put the TMC2208 driver in the felfil spooler hope to get better quality filament production as well as being more quieter
It’ll be interesting to see if you get better quality as well. The movement is definitely smoother as well as quieter.
@@MichaelKlements the cnc shield v4 what a mess but will keep hacking a way at it
@@MichaelKlements I maybe missing something here but iv tried the tmc2208 and yes there very quiet as the spooler is quiet and not missing steps where the puller tmc2208 is missing steps every revolution but wont speed up when script is telling it to as it stays on one set speed I find strange both in legacy mode GRBL CNC shield v4
How did you set the delay values in order to use with potentiometer as on the video? My motor is turning too fast even with 40 000 delay and at that setting it changes speed randomly sometimes. I can´t make it turn at speed at which you can hear each step as you do. Thanks
Hi Petr,
It sounds like there's something wrong with the way you're using your delays. I haven't done anything different to how you would drive an A4988 driver, something like this:
digitalWrite(travStepPin, HIGH);
delay(interval);
digitalWrite(travStepPin, LOW);
delay(interval);
With the interval being a variable driven by the potentiometer (somewhere around 2 - 500).
Hi!
Would I be able to use a4988 instead of the tmc2208, in a cnc shield, I'll pair them with a NEMA 17. Do I have to do any moification (noise it's not a concern for me)?
It depends on what the shield was designed for. If the shield is designed for a A4988 driver then it'll work with either driver, if its designed for the TMC2208 then you'll need to look at what type of interface it uses. The TMC2208 drivers can be used in 3 different modes, only 1 of which is compatible with the A4988 drivers.
Great comparison!
Is the main reason that the TMC drivers are quieter than the A4988 because they can micro-step at 1/256 of a step and the A4988 only 1/16 step? I'm curious because I know that the higher the micro-stepping, the slower the top speed of the motor because the Arduino can only output a certain amount of pulses per second reliably while performing other functions. I need to drive a stepper motor at speeds of a minimum of what is shown at 2:20, so what is the approx top speed of an unloaded stepper motor when using a TMC driver?
Thanks!
Thank you.
I think it’s a combination of micro-stepping and creating more of a sine-wave on the pulses to smooth them out.
Yes you are correct in theory, except that these boards have been designed to replace the A4988 boards, so they take care of the additional micro-stepping.
If your Arduino outputs 8 steps on the A4988 then it would do the same on the TMC2208. The TMC controller then takes the 8 steps and makes it 128 steps, so no extra processing time is required from the Arduino.
@@MichaelKlements Thank you for the useful info. I've heard about how the TMC's smooth power curves help decrease noise, but I didn't know that they take care of the additional micro-stepping! If this means that it can spin a stepper at the same speed as an A4988 running at full-step mode, with the same MCU output, I'm gonna replace my A4988s soon.
Apart from the noise level would 2208s in a 3D printer provide better print quality? Would the smoother and greater step count reduce ringing and allow finer control over positioning?
I think it depends on whether the 3D printer has been designed to run on 2208s or not. If you’ve just swapped out 2208s then your control board is still working in 4, 8 or 16 step mode as supported by the 4988s. If your control board is designed to use the 2208s then it might have been designed to get the full 256 microsteps which would improve position control.
I recently bought my first non "black box" 3D printer, a CR-10S, and it's really noisy. It has those A4988 drivers. Do you know if these and the TMC2208 _chips_ are _pin and i/o compatible?_
The chips themselves are only like $2 a pop (so locally, almost 1/10th of those complete PCB modules). And as a microsoldering tech, it would be a lot cleaner, less work, and _a lot_ cheaper for me, to just swap the chips on the stock printer PCB, to TMC2208s. *_IF_* that would actually work.
It depends on the configuration of the board you're using. For the most part they are pin compatible (the motor pins, logic voltage and supply voltage pains are all the same), you might just need to modify the micro-stepping or enable signals. Depending on the board this could be as easy as plugging in or removing a jumper or it could mean that you need to break a trace or run a new bridge somewhere. You'll likely also need to re-flash the firmware.
which app is that which you are using?
What is it that makes these new TMC2208 motor drivers so quiet? What about EMI - do they put less high frequency noise into the motor winding circuits? I'm currently using DRV8825's for an automatic magnetic loop antenna tuner.
I'm not an expert in these drives, but I believe they just break the motor's steps up into much smaller micro-steps and then incrementally energize them. This leads to more of a sine wave looking function rather than a choppy square wave. The A4988's just energize each coil pair, so the rotor rapidly "jumps" between poles which is quite noisy.
Hi, thanks for this wonderful video. I am currently trying to figure out how to drive a tmc2208 with arduino but i couldn't succeed yet so it will be really helpful if you can just share the arduino code that you used for this test video.
I don't think I saved the code, it's just a really simple stepper setup like you'd do for an A4988 driver. Have a look at my camera slider project on my blog for code and a circuit specific to the TMC2208 drivers.
I'm going to use TMC2209's for a robot arm. Slightly more expensive than the TMC2208's but can apparently handle 2A. We'll see.
im building a robot arm too haha
Will there any problems while using different types of stepper drivers (a4988 & Tmc2209) on the same skr board ?
Not that I'm aware of, it used to be quite popular to use the TMC drivers on 3D printer X and Y axis but retain the A4988s for the extruder and Z axis as you generally get more torque out of them and they're moving really slowly in any case.
Hello Michael,
at the moment iam working on a project at my university and need some help. I use A4988 in the current construction where i control two stepper motors with a joystick. Now cause the whole system is very noisy i want to change the drivers and use TMC2208 or TMC2209 drivers. You would help me a lot if you could give me some information about your source code, the set Vrefs that you used on both drivers and what kind of power supply (Voltage and Current) you use. Did you measure the "real" currents that flow through your system? Iam really glad to finally find someone that made a video about this topic only one month ago. Thanks in advance and stay healthy!
I'm using the drivers in "legacy" mode, which is the same interface as the A4988 drivers. So I'm simply setting the direction pin either high or low and then pulsing the step pin at different intervals to get different speeds. I've done a few projects using A4988 drivers, which you can find on my site linked in the description. The code used for these projects will work with the TMC2208 drivers as well, with no modification required.
I set the Vrefs using the voltage measurement method - wiki.fysetc.com/TMC2208/ or th-cam.com/video/OpaUwWouyE0/w-d-xo.html
I'm just using a variable 0-24V 5A power supply, I had it set on 12V for this test. So 12V and 5A power supply.
No, I didn't measure the real current. This shouldn't be too far off what is stated in the motor's datasheet if you have those available for your motors.
@@MichaelKlements Could you give me access to your programm code please? And thanks for your quick answer!
Nice info, thanks :)
Glad it was helpful!
Great video. Can you share your code for the tmc variant?
The code is exactly the same as for the A4988. You just set the direction pin high or low and then pulse the step pin to move the motor.
@@MichaelKlements Where can I find that code? Because I'm completely stuck over here...
Have a look at my old guide I put together. It's for the A4988 driver, but the code is the same - www.the-diy-life.com/arduino-stepper-motor-pololu-driver/
Im a little confused and glancing through the documentation didn't really clear it up for me. On the standalone replacement (no UART) if I have MS1, MS2 and MS3 set to high it translates to 1/16 microstepping on both the A4988 and TMC2208. But what does the "256 interpolation" mean in this case in the TMC? Does it interpolate 256 times between the 1/16 of the step (making it effectively 1/4096) or does it interpolate by 16 per 1/16 microstep (making it effectively 1/256)? In the case of the 2nd option, what difference would changing MS1 and MS2 even make if it would always end up dividing the step into 256?
One intuitive understanding I'm leaning towards is that it would indeed always divide the full step into 256 but setting it to 1/16 will force Marlin to provide better dimensional accuracy since the path curve would be sampled at double the resolution from 1/8.
In general after I switched from A4988 to TMS2208 as standalone replacement without UART I was a bit surprised that the change wasn't really so significant. The motors still transfer quite a lot of vibration to the board, the 1/16 microsteps can still definitely be felt as little vibrations. Not sure what's wrong with the interpolation, perhaps it's just happening too fast and isn't really stretched from one microstep to the other?
I have an urgent question. I have a stepper motor with 2,8v and 1,6A rms can I use this for it. I,ll be happy for answering my question ✋🏼😊
2.8V sounds quite low, but yes this driver should work for your motor. It can handle 0-36V and up to 2A current.
I replaced the cheaper 4988 with the more (moderate) expensive ones 2208 and it is a huge difference. Sadly there are China-Clones with the same digits but AT instead TMC lettering and that does not sound as good. So be aware of bad imitates. Also DRV8825 are not that good in sound what I have seen till now.
Big difference!
As i see, the Arduino programming and the wiring are identical for both drivers, right?
Yes the TMC2208 drivers are made to be a crop-in replacement for the A4988 so code and wiring are the same.
@@MichaelKlements Okay, thanks for your answer!
@@MichaelKlements In the video TMC2208 is working in legacy mode (mode 1), does using mode 3 decrease the noise or the noise is the same as mode 1?
Is it microstepping? Wouldn't this affect the torque?
Microstepping doesn't reduce torque in decent quality controllers.
Où est le programme ?
The tmc a4988 sound 80's techno music or 80's scifi horror sound track and tmc 2208 sound completely out of space.
hey i am planning to use tmc 5160bob to drive nema 17 motors with analog input from joystick but cannot find any relevant details for the code so can i use the same step/dir pin interface as you ? i am using tmc 5160 cos the continious current for motor is 1.5A and tmc 2208 supports 1.25 or 1.5 can anyone provide me with any help!
I haven’t used a TMC5160 but it looks like the pin out is similar so yes I’d imagine you could drive it using the same code as I’ve used with the TMC2208
In which stepping mode u testing
Full step mode or microstepping mode
Both were tested
@@MichaelKlements im asking in this particular video in which mode you tested
Both were tested in this particular video, I mention in each section which mode the driver is in.
@@MichaelKlementsI got it buddy Thanks for replying ❤️
Is there any way to add cw, ccw direction selector switch and speed control of stepper motor? using rotary encoder KY-040 A slight increase or decrease from 1 rpm to 100 rpm?
Yes you could use the Arduino to do both of those - a selector switch for direction and a potentiometer for speed.
@@MichaelKlements
I just learned how to use a stepper motor and an arduino.
and this is source code I use to control the stepper motor(NEMA17).
const int dirPin = 4;
const int stepPin = 3;
void setup()
{
pinMode(stepPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(dirPin, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
digitalWrite(dirPin, HIGH);
digitalWrite(stepPin, HIGH);
delayMicroseconds(11500);
digitalWrite(stepPin, LOW);
delayMicroseconds(11500);
delay(1);
}
But all I can do is copy and paste.
If I have to add a switch for reversing the rotation direction.
and add potentiometer to adjust rpm I don't know how to connect those devices on the controller board (A4988)and the Arduino board(Arduino nano).
And what directives do I need to add to the source code?
This is my facebook And the circuit I use is the first picture.
m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=417174586562347&id=100048094273900
At a basic level you need to set the direction pin (dirPin) to HIGH or LOW to change the motor direction and you'll need to use the potentiometer output to change the delay between motor pulses (currently delayMicroseconds(11500)).
There are loads of tutorials online for connecting basic switches and potentiometers to an Arduino.
Hey michael, good video there. i've created something similar to you, a pan tilt camera mount.
im finding it hard to get the stepper driver to take bigger steps and go faster -
i've played with ms1 and ms2, changed motor voltage 9v(2a) -12v(2a), changed the delay time and wait time too, but the rotation is still really slow. any ideas? i use a nema14 motor not sure if that makes a difference
Thanks Sunny.
The delay should be the only thing you need to change if the step pin is working correctly. The motor voltage or type (nema 14) shouldn’t make any difference to the speed as the speed is just based on how quickly the driver steps the motor.
Stepper motors are for slow precise movement. For fat moves you need a couple of things, also take note that their torque drastically decreases with speed.
1. Acceleration, meaning slowly ramping up the speed instead of instant full speed, otherwise they'll stall.
2. High voltage to more quickly energize the coils (on my NEMA 23 motors i use 48V for example)
3. Good drivers that vibrate less and thereby increase max speed before it stalls.
4. Obviously the correct input signals for the desired speed.
why do you run the 4988 "medium to half speed" at 2:16 at maybe 60pm? and then for the 2208 "medium to half speed" at 3:30 it looks more maybe 10rpm? Or were you commenting on a test you made outside this video when you actually ran it as fast as the 4988 test?
I probably should have tried to match their speed a bit better. I had adjusted them both faster and slower for comparison, so I didn't really focus on getting the speeds synced up.
@@MichaelKlements it would have made the test seem more fair. I don't know if the noise goes linearly or non-linearly more loudly with rpm's but that was a really big rpm difference to make a subjective comparison from.
@@randybisme don't sweat it, you get what you pay for, the 4988 is dirty cheap and notoriously VERY noisy, the TMC are more expensive (some like the TMC5161 a lot more), but dead quiet. at any RPM. period. no need to bash michael here with anal retentive accusations of RPM "misalignments"
Can I replace drv8825 for tmc2209 on cnc shield v3 on top of arduino uno? :)
I’ve never used the DRV8825 drivers but it looks like they’re a drop in replacement for the A4988 and TMC2208 as well.
Is the drv8825 's sound level comparable to a4988 or tmc?
I've never tried a DRV8825, but I'll look at getting one on order to compare the sound level between all three drivers.
@@MichaelKlements I think the sound is like a4988. Are there any other silent options besides tmc?
Have you encountered a fast heating problem?
Heating up quickly is probably a result of the current being too high.
so... TMC2208 it is much much emites lower sound than 4988... right?
Yes correct, almost silent at low speeds.
hi, it's incredibly quiet, is there a way to make it work without arduino ?
You don't have to use an Arduino but you'll need some form of microcontroller to pulse the step input in order to drive it. You may be able to use an analogue circuit that produces a "pulse" output although I haven't tried this.
Will this work on a NEMA 34?
The TMC2208 drivers have a current limit of 2A. So yes, they will work with a Nema 34 motor, but will only be able to supply a maximum of 2A. This is likely less than your motor's maximum, so you'll be limiting the maximum amount of torque you can produce.
@@MichaelKlements thank you for your kind response much appreciated, do you know an alternative or isn't there one? Kind regards.
I've never had a need to use Nema 34s, so I haven't got much experience with them. I'd suggest asking around larger CNC machine forums - like the guys who make large CNC routers and laser cutters.
@@keniji7442 I believe the newer TMC5160 or TCM5161 can handle much higher amps, so they might work for your application, look up their specs. alternatively you might want to consider actual stepper motor controllers, rather than break out boards, look on stepperonline for the suggested controllers for your nema 34
*wii reading disc sound intensifies*
Would you be able to guide me in the right direction with using TMC2208 with Arduino Uno? Started pullin hair as of last night LOL.
Yes sure, it’s pretty much the same as with a A4988 driver - www.the-diy-life.com/arduino-stepper-motor-pololu-driver/
But you can remove the little black loop next to the Step and Dir pins, and you need to tie the En pin (one on the end) to 0V.
Then it should work
@@MichaelKlements I think I made that classic mistake of connecting wrong EN pin. The writing on the PCB is next to the wrong pin. But yes sir, following such and examples from your post it works like a charm!
have u a code please ?
Have a look at my camera slider project for a code example - www.the-diy-life.com/diy-motorised-camera-slider-with-object-tracking/
Are you South African?
Yes I am
Did somebody know a store for byt in within EU, am in greece and Amazon is so effecience here haha.
my printer still makes plenty of noise 😭still much better tho
don't buy tmc2208 u wont get fucking advance, i mean line advance