Hi all NC's
I have tried joining the club.
Build a 3 axis table and bought some steppers and a breakoutboard.
Link for bought item : http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/346614957-3Aixs-Nema-23-290oz-in-21kg-cm-Stepper-Motor-TB6560-drive-board-power-supply-CNC-Router-wholesalers.html
At the time I had NO clue about mach3 or any type of CAC/NC software. Still feel I don't
Anywho - I received the steppers. But no English manual. Only Chinese and some screenshots of mach3 setting up for a roadrunner.tab testrun
I thought - Ohh well, I can do this whit just the pictures.
Hooked up - did a drivers test with excellent result - loaded the Gcode and pressed cycle start


Then:
Ugly sound from one of the engines. A longer ugly sound from one of the engines. And then a cracking sound from the board garnished with blue smoke.
All happening really quick I might add.

So - With a broken board I started doing some resarch on the subject Standard male approach of things
Now:
I have seen the motor-tuning videos etc - But is that enough?
I would really like to avoid breaking the next board as well

Hope any of you can help
Wr
Paw

Sounds like you wired incorrectly,  Mach itself can not smoke anything, connecting things wrongly and then enabling the hardware via Mach can obviously smoke things. So next time make sure things wired correctly.

One thing I learned early on that buying cheap components can work out more costly. I bought drives and breakout from a guy that said they were excellent and he would help all he could until I was up and running. He didnt provide much help after he had my money but I eventually got up and running with the help of John Prentice( a long time Mach user) but still had all sorts of issues. In the end I threw in the towel and bought a decent breakout (PMDX122) and some Gecko G201 drives and I could not believe the difference and I just wish I had paid a small bit extra for the quality in the start as it ended up costing much more and if I counted time it would have been a huge difference. Also worth mentioning is the well known drives and breakouts have well documented manuals and support is excellent.
Sorry for the bit of preaching but as I went through it myself I try and help others not have to go through it.
Hood

Echo what Hood said.
I understand that cost is a consideration, but, I never regretted doing the following:
- Power supply - 30 amp  ( can handle running 4 steppers at 7 amps each, ie; X,Y,Z,A axis)
- ( 4) drives  ( and i would recommend Gecko's also )
- dedicated computer for CNC
- controller / computer on portable stand which can be used at any machine

Then you need to consider software, Controller / CAD / CAM and that is as much or more than the above.

No need to rebuy and satisfies all I need now and possible future,

Look at it this way....sort of like the machine and then you add tooling and fixtures to the picture.
The mistake is that some folks spend a fortune for the machine  / tooling / fixtures and chintzy on the other stuff that's makes the CNC
part of it actualy work well.

FWIW,
RICH

Paw,

There is a good chance you connected the stepper wires (or one of them) incorrectly. The bipolar steppers you are using have two separate windings which can be checked with a multimeter (or other continuity checker).
One pair of wires is A - A# and the other pair is B - B# now it doesn't matter which way round the A's or the B's go but you must not get them mixed. (I have learn't that with stuff from China you cannot rely on the colour coding of wires being correct you have to check them with a meter just to be sure).

Hope this helps,

Tweakie.

Hi all
Thanks for tips and info.
I will try to set up again, being carefull with wires.
Next stop will be a better breakoutboard with a manual in a language I can understand