Protecting Motor Shield (need some safety tips)

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azakhary
 
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Joined: Sat Feb 27, 2016 8:19 am

Protecting Motor Shield (need some safety tips)

Post by azakhary »

Hi,

I am currently making a simple 2axis CNC plotter with arduino, adafruit motor shield (v2), 2 steppers (Nema 17HS13-0404S) and one mini servo. Motor shield has a 12v, 2amp power supply connected to it.
Should be finishing the project in about 2 weeks, and it looks pretty neat. (not sure if you guys have a place on this form to post video and brag about it :-P)
but anyway, I just had several questions about "safety"of this things, for normal continuous operation. So I don't damage my adafruit shield.

1) Every time before starting the "device", I would have to manually put it on "zero" point. This means, I will have to manually rotate the steppers. Now I understand it will generate some electricity back into the shield from motor (which by the way lights up the power LED). my questions is, is this safe? can it burn the arduino and/or shield? is there a safety mechanism in place? should I make one? if so how?

2) Coding: every time I "setup" method I call "release" for the steppers, so coils are not heating up. and every time I finish movement I release again. I am using onestep method with DOUBLE mode, and this does heat my motors a lot (can't touch it) if I don't release every time. Is this correct approach?

3) Is it ok to leave power own, with shield, while arduino is powered OFF, for a long period of time? (how about the opposite)

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Protecting Motor Shield (need some safety tips)

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

1) This is generally not a problem.
2) Stepper motors generally tend to run hot. They are designed for precision - not efficiency. A typical winding temperature rating is for well over 200 F.
3) Strictly speaking, it is best to power up the logic before applying motor power.

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azakhary
 
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Re: Protecting Motor Shield (need some safety tips)

Post by azakhary »

Thanks bill, appreciate your help!

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