HY CNC Single Axis TB6600 0.2 - 5A Two Phase Hybrid Stepper Motor Driver Controller

Its hard to know where to start with this. I ordered 3 for a custom build CNC router and they arrived on time in working order. I got every thing wired and tested with out trouble.After about ten hours of use the first one had... an issue (Left in the photo). I don't know if the capacitor exploded first or the resisters burned first, in the end though who cares. When the cap blew it went so hard though that it sheared the first LED off from the board and cracked shattered the glass.I replaced it with  SainSmart CNC Micro-Stepping Stepper Motor Driver 2M542 Bi-polar 2phase 4.2A Switch  ( a vastly superior product in every way), and hooked it all back up again.About two more machine hours later and im smelling smoke... again. (center photo) Again replaced this peace of junk and get back to work for around five more hours when again my world is filled with blue smoke. (Right). This time though things got really exciting because not only did it commit suicide but it took my computer with it!! Fried the entire thing.I could have sworn my break out board hand an optical isolator, guess not. So im out $60 for these things, plus $70 for a replacement pc and all that time.The second photo shows a comparison between the HY on the right and a replacement ST on the left, they aren't even in the same class.

This is a Chinese product. It is low cost. There are documentation issues with some revisions (you will learn not to trust the dip switch settings printed on the enclosure). Some of the CNC forums indicate that the design is such that torque is restricted by 30% (to avoid overheating?) so you'll never get full torque. Indeed, I have since replaced mine with drivers that give me an honest 5 amps RMS. But, having said all that, if you need something cheap and you don't need 100% torque and you can afford to fiddle with it for a spell then these units are for you.

I have tried out a few different stepper drivers for a Dragonframe Motion control system that I have amassed. I now have 20 of this type of driver and I use them for a wide variety of stepper motors large and small. I used them with power supply voltages ranging form 12V to 48V. Easy to setup. However it is not perfect. The Micro stepping settings are completely different than the enclosure indicates. 1/1 is 1,1,0 not 0,1,1 and 1/2 step is 0,1,1 or 0,1,0 not 1,0,1 or 0,0,1. 1/4 is actually 1,0,1 1/8 is 1,0,0 and 1/16th step is 0,0,1. Finally the DIP switches are a bit hard to access and that is unfortunate because I change settings and connections often so I ended up cutting out a little extra space around the DIP switches. All in all a very good driver for the money.

Due to it's low price, I was little worried that it wouldn't work as advertised, but it works quite well. I did have hard time looking for English manuals/specs... ended up fining someone's blog by google search that helped.

After rewiring these devices, 3 out of 4 of the TB6600 chips went up in smoke. I verified I had not hooked them up reverse polarity, there were no shorts in my wiring, the voltage was 47.8v. I decided to source the TB6600 chips elsewhere and solder them in myself (which I am experienced with) and burnt up 4 of the 5 replacement chips before I gave up. These drivers worked great before this happened, but now they are useless.

Works well. I use both a nema 23 and nema 17 stepper motor and both function properly using this driver although the driver itself is a bit noisy but that's not too big of a deal.

I did not received any document or CD with the item, did not know really know how to hook it up and returned for refund.

A very straight forward installation and setup, except they do not define which switch position is on or off on their chart.