Historic - Supplier Review: snipermand - Stepper drivers

Please note this review is from my original build in 2011.

Some of the sellers no longer trade and where the seller is still trading the items will likely have changed.

Snipermand

Pololu/StepStick Stepper Motor Driver (RepRap RAMPS/Sanguinololu)

Price	£7.72		Unit Type	Each
Delivery cost	£1.29		Type	Economy Int'l Shipping
Date Order	16/11/11		Date Received	23/11/11

Product Review

Pros	Cons
Good heatsink Good communication/support	Trimpot doesn't have stops

Would I buy stepper drivers from Snipermand again?

No

The lack of stops on the trimpot makes them a pain to use. Its a shame as the heatsink is good quality and the price is decent.

StepStick - Allegro from snipermand configuring

As I mentioned in my last post I purchased a StepStick stepper driver from spinermand on eBay (link to item) and the trimpot kept turning.

I posted the a thread on the RepRap forums and promptly got the following reply.
On the 'normal' stepstick it would be the left pad and upper right. If your multimeter supports measuring resistance, you might want to use that to determine how far the trimpot is open.


Ironically enough the person how replied was (or at least seems) to be the same guy who runs RepRapWorld. Which I purposely avoided due to the questionable selection of parts in the RAMPS DIY kit.

Connections to measure highlighted

By attaching the multimeter in resistance mode to the highlighted points (see above image) on the new
StepStick then comparing it to be resistance one of my RepRapWorld StepStick I was able to match the settings.


For this reason I would avoid snipermand for StepSticks as it adds another step to the set-up and would be even more tricky if don't have a StepStick with a ended trimpot as you'd have to calculate the values.