i want to built a machine and it is very important to accuracy. for this purpose i want to learn approximately what is the percentage of misstep of step motors, and which step motors and drivers are better in this purpose. for example 17hs3401 nema17 stepper and a4988 driver, approximately how many steps is it miss out of 1.000.000 steps? 1 or 10 or 1000? in my experiments it is makes 1500 mis-step out of 1 million steps. it is normal or my equipment is low quality or i made some mistake.
maybe my question is a little weird, but i want to solve this problem. any idea acceptable for this. ty
The 3d printer is a classic example of a stepper that does not skip steps. The key is whether or not to assume that the stepper is controlled with proper acceleration and is not subjected to unscheduled forces. On the other hand, it means that the printer head cannot be recovered efficiently when a step is skipped, such as in the case of an accidental collision with the printer head.
When high reliability is required, as in industrial equipment, it is necessary to monitor the amount of rotation using a stepper with an encoder.
You would only need encoders on a stepper motor when
You don't have an opportunity to move the motor past a Home sensor during operation
The "cost" of missing steps is very high: e.g., you are building a safety-critical machine and need to know immediately if it's not in position
You expect that some external force could move the motor in spite of its holding torque
A properly loaded stepper will not skip steps, as mentioned before. In testing new machines, we will often run a stepper-controlled carriage back and forth for thousands of cycles. At the end of the test, we expect that the carriage will be exactly where we expect it to be. If not, there's a problem.