So I just let the smoke out of two Arduinos and strange things happening with a stepper driver?

Other Hardware Motors, Mechanics, Power and CNC
21

No, nothing, and I'm not even talking about the VM pin for the motor here, I'm talking about the Vio pin that is meant to take 3-5V.

And the only components are the Ardunio and a TMC2130 that only has GND going from the Arduino to the TMC2130 and 5V from the TMC2130 to the Arduino, no other connections to anything. just putting the TMC2130 in the circuit with the Arduino shut the Arduino down.

Literally, there are the only components in play and power over USB.

Imgur

Imgur

22

Hi,
Removed the wires from the driver and with a DMM in diode test mode, measure between 5V and gnd pins of the driver, test in both directions.

Thanks.. Tom.. :smiley: :+1: :coffee: :australia:

23

Yep, short between the GND and 5V pin :grimacing:

24

Hi,
It looks like your driver is cooked.
Check the PCB and make sure that the two pins do not have a solder bridge between them.

Thanks.. Tom.. :smiley: :+1: :coffee: :australia:

25

Time after time we see this on this forum. IF you are using the onboard 5V regulation of the Arduino to power accessories, it doesn't matter if it's a Mega, Nano, Uno, or %^&*(), sooner or later you end up posting questions about failures, damage, etc. Power the stepper board from a separate 5V power supply, connect ONLY the ground and the signal wires of the Arduino to the stepper board, and you will be happy with the results. Generally, use the onboard 5V regulation of the Arduino for simple low power circuits only(e.g. LEDs, keypads, buttons, etc. but NOT Neopixels, LED matrix drivers, etc, steppers, servos, etc.).
I'm sure it's not the answer you wanted to hear. An external 5V regulated power supply should be available to you for peanuts. You may already have several, if you keep every wall wart that passes through your house, like I do!

26

The reason why there's an Arduino 5v input to the stepper driver is to give it a logic level reference for the incoming control pulses and supply the logical functions on the board. This is certainly the case with the TI DRV series drivers. In fact reading the 2130 datasheet the Vcc supply current is given as 19mA which isn't a huge extra load on the regulator. For the 2209 it's 7.5mA. I doubt either of these numbers will fry the regulator on the Mega.

The heavy current the driver needs will come from the VM supply.

From post #23 the OP has found a dead short which will fry the regulator!