Enhance Stepper 🚀 Control with BIGTREETECH Direct TMC2209 Review

I was recently upgrading a Tronxy P802M printer when I melted one of the bed heater wires on the crappy Melzi 2.0 board it came with. I used BIGTREETECH SKR V1.3, BIGTREETECH TMC2209 driver and BIGTREETECH TFT35 V3.0 touch screen. The instructions available aren't very clear, but thanks to the power of the YouTube tutorials, I was able to get mine fully working. Love it and bought another full install for my second Tronxy printer.

I was skeptical how much these stepper drivers could reduce printer noise but wow. I'm amazed at how much they've changed. My only criticism of this product is that it would be nice to be able to get a screwdriver to set the voltage reference. None of the ones I had on hand fit perfectly, so I wasn't able to set it up as easily as I wanted. For this reason, some competing packages include a screwdriver.

I tested 4 boards, I will not test the 5th. All have failed. When the first one lit up I thought I made a mistake in the wiring. Checked, revised layout, tried again. A loud bang, and the second was toast. I pulled out all the extra pins, just the motor voltage and VDD. Connect step pin to VDD, chip smokes. Connect step pin to ground, chip smokes. Literally just burned chips and money for an hour of basic testing.