My motors are clicking and making erratic noises?

Hello,
I just built a Prusa Mendel I2 from nwreprap, and the stepper motors will not work correctly. No matter what I do they always make jerky, inconsistent movements and strange, squealing sounds. Sometimes the motors don't move at all, they just make noise. I have adjusted the current up and down and still cannot resolve the problem. Any ideas? Thanks, icecats

Are you sure you have the stepper motors connected correctly to the drivers, i.e. each driver output pair connected to the two connections of one stepper motor coil?

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Icecats,
That squealing sound and jerky inconsistent movements is one symptom of too high of a step rate. Its not a current issue. This could have several causes:

• Double check the board's documentation on the microstepping jumper settings, check the web to make sure it's correct.
• Check the microstepping your drivers are jumpered to.
• Check your steps per mm in firmware.
• Check your feed rate. Set it very low like 10mm/sec to test.
• Check your acceleration values. A stepper can not accelerate instantly. Set to a low value like 20mm/sec just to test.

If you think the board is jumpered to 16 microsteps, and it's really set to single there will be too many steps per second for the stepper to begin rotating.

Info on exactly what your setup is (board, drivers, feed rates, acceleration, and firmware version) will help.