No power when stepper drivers are installed

[Frankie]

I’m having a problem where the controller powers up and connects to WIFI just fine if there are no stepper drivers installed. When I disconnect the power, install the stepper drivers, and power it back up, the light flashes on the controller, but it does not connect to the WIFI.

If I connect to the serial port, it shows the following output:

rst:0x10 (RTCWDT_RTC_RESET),boot:0x33 (SPI_FAST_FLASH_BOOT)
invalid header: 0xffffffff
invalid header: 0xffffffff
invalid header: 0xffffffff
invalid header: 0xffffffff
invalid header: 0xffffffff
invalid header: 0xffffffff
invalid header: 0xffffffff
ets Jul 29 2019 12:21:46

Any suggestions?

[RickG]

What stepper drivers are you using? I used tmc2800 and had the same problem. What worked for me was moving the enable pin to gpio 33. If you are using the board Matt designed you will need to cut the trace from gpio 12 and then solder a small wire from gpio 33 to the enable pin trace on the board. This worked for me using the tmc2800 steppers. If you are using a different stepper driver I’m not sure.

[Frankie]

Thank you RickG!
I’m using a TMC2225.
Hopefully moving to GPIO 33 will help. I’ll test it on the breadboard before I modify the PCB.

Do you know why it’s happening? I was trying to read some of the esp32.com forums about the error. I thought it was a power issue. However, from the site:

There are three “power domains” on the chip, i.e. three separate power input sections.
Domain VDD3P3_CPU in on pin 37 (NOT GPIO 37) supplies power to GPIO5; GPIO18; GPIO23; GPIO19; GPIO22; GPIO3; GPIO1; and GPIO21.
This domain can SOURCE up to 40mA and SINK up to 28mA on STRENGTH 3

Domain VDD3P3_RTC in on pin 19 (NOT GPIO 19) supplies power to GPIO36; GPIO37; GPIO38; GPIO39 ; GPIO34; GPIO35; GPIO32; GPIO33; GPIO25; GPIO26; GPIO27;GPIO14; GPIO12; GPIO13; GPIO15; GPIO2; GPIO0; and GPIO4.
Remember GPIO34..GPIO39 are inputs only, so cannot be used to source or sink current meaningfully.
This domain can SOURCE 40mA and SINK up to 28mA on STRENGTH 3

Domain VDD_SDIO in on pin 26 (NOT GPIO 26) is a special bidirectional power pin which can be driven by 3.3V externally, route VDD3P3_RTC via an internal network, or supply 1.8V via a LDO regulator. The LDO regulator can only supply 40mA. If using power through VDD3P3_RTC, the internal network will cause a voltage drop; the higher the current drawn, the more voltage will be lost in the chip and more heat generated.
Domain VDD_SDIO supplies power to GPIO16; GPIO17; GPIO9; GPIO10; GPIO11; GPIO6; GPIO7; and GPIO8
This domain can SOURCE up to 20mA and SINK up to 28mA on STRENGTH 3 (Remember the 40mA total limit at 1.8V)

The sum of all the I/O current may not exceed 1200mA

And as a bonus hard-to-find figure, the internal pull-up and pull-down resistors are 45kOhms each.

Which seems to say that GPIO 12 and GPIO 33 are in the same power domain. So, maybe it’s a different issue?

[hoopty]

Frankie,

Did you get it to compile without commenting out anything. It seems you are having constant resets.

you have to enter w/SSID/PASSWORD in the monitor but if it is resetting constantly and not showing a message where IP = 0.0.0.0 then you diid not get a good compile.

[Frankie]

I got it to compile correctly. I was also able to enter the SSID and password if the stepper drivers were not installed.
After making the modification that RickG suggested, it works fine.

On the Adafruit website it has this information about the pins:
12 – This is GPIO #12 and also an analog input A11 on ADC #2. This pin has a pull-down resistor built into it, we recommend using it as an output only, or making sure that the pull-down is not affected during boot.

The stepper drivers that I’m using must be pushing that pin high.
Changing to pin 33 for the enable pin worked fine.
I scraped off the trace to 12 and soldered a fine wire to 33 and changed the config to use 33 as the enable pin.

[hoopty]

here is some info from Matt

Setting up and configuring the SandBot

[hoopty]

I used tmc2103 and soldered I2c config pins on the bottom to turn off I2c Programming

[RickG]

Correction to me using tmc2800. I’m using tmc2208 stepper drivers.

[june wang]

Thank you RickG!
I’m using the board designed by MATT.I have cut the trace from gpio 12 and then solder a small wire from gpio 33 to the enable pin trace on the board as what you said.But now just one stepper is working,the other one is no power.Can you help me?Thang you very much!

[RickG]

Try using the 4988 drivers you have. If they work one of your tmc2208 is bad. Also, make sure you have the enable pin set correctly for both drivers in the software.

[Author]

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