SatNOGS proyect - Motors won't move (Easycomm III protocol + A4988 driver)

Other Hardware Motors, Mechanics, Power and CNC
1

Hello,
my mates and I are building a (DIY) Ground Station for Satellite tracking following SatNOGS proyect (https://satnogs.org/).

We had to use an Arduino UNO for our implementation of SatNOGs rotator. We have 2 NEMA 17 steppers and 2 drivers A4988 Pololu, among other things.

Nema 17
Torque - 4.4 kg/cm
Corriente por fase - 1.68 A
Resistencia por fase - 1.65 ohm
Ángulo de paso - 1.8°
Alimentación - fuente 12V (2.5A) and 100muF capacitor

A4988
Full Step mode
Imax limited to 1A (no torque on motor yet, free to move)

Decided to use serial communication as implemented in this link below:

Main program can be found at link below:

Where we modified this variables to match Full Step mode:
#define SAMPLE_TIME 0.1 ///< Control loop in s
#define RATIO 54 ///< Gear ratio of rotator gear box
#define MICROSTEP 1 ///< Set Microstep
#define MIN_PULSE_WIDTH 20 ///< In microsecond for AccelStepper
#define MAX_SPEED 800 ///< In steps/s, consider the microstep
#define MAX_ACCELERATION 200 ///< In steps/s^2, consider the microstep
#define SPR 200L ///< Step Per Revolution, consider the microstep

Now that we have set the scene, the problem is motors won't move when we send a command in the correct expected format (Eg: "AZ90.0 EL45.0") and it won't even respond to our request for it's position (command "AZ EL .")

Motors and drivers work, because with every reboot the program starts the "Homing routine" that is moving to find the 0° position, so motors are able to move (both work).

Another problem is that we had current limited at 0,5A aprox, but when we set current limited to 1A nothing changed except the noise the motors are making while staying parked (supposly waiting for instructions) and the heat in both driver’s heatsinks which is kind of scary after a few minutes turned on. It’s important to make clear that both steppers are free to move at the moment (no torque on them yet, first we are tring to get them to move as instructed).

Any suggestion on what could be not working will be highly appreciated, and any tips on how to debug this issue will be taken in count.

Thanks in advance