# Chinese tb6560 driver board



## lensman57 (Oct 14, 2011)

Hi to everyone,

On the way to converting the X1 to cnc, I eventually managed to get the driver board to communicate with the MACH3 in jog mode. This board is the red version of the TB6560 chip and it arrived from Hongkong without any documentation or instruction whatsoever even though I had requested the manual twice from the vendor. I post the link that I found usefull in resolving some of the issues with this board and I hope it is of some help with others whom have bought this driver and I hope that the administrators do not mind.
http://wiki.zentoolworks.com/index.php/Troubleshooting_Tips
There are still some issues with the current and step settings that I am not sure about, The board in the link is a different version but the settings seem to work.

Best Regards,

A.G


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## ShedBoy (Oct 14, 2011)

I have heard some conflicting stories regarding this driver, alot seems to be about how sensitive they are to voltage spikes. I would like to see more info on this board so keeps us informed. Have you posted pictures in the cnc zone?
Brock


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## ShedBoy (Oct 14, 2011)

Just found the thread 
Brock


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## lensman57 (Oct 14, 2011)

Hi Brock,

I have read all those reports too. Some claim that the 3 axis ones work OK but the 4 axis boards have problems. There is a guy on cnc zone who has actually repaired his board by adding a buffer of some sort. I am very new to all this but will keep everyone informed the best I can. I also have another one of these TB6560 boards but that one is a blue PCB that seem to have problems. Will be in touch.

Regards,

A.G


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## warranator (Oct 14, 2011)

Had one of these drivers, sent it back and bought a Gecko G540. Had endless hassles with the TB6560. Just my 2c worth..


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## HS93 (Oct 14, 2011)

warranator  said:
			
		

> Had one of these drivers, sent it back and bought a Gecko G540. Had endless hassles with the TB6560. Just my 2c worth..



How are you finding the 540, I am just about to try and set it up on a small gantry mill from widgetmaster (one of the last I think) just finishing the micro switches off what a pig that was as it is very small.

Is there anything to look out for ?

thanks 

Peter


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## warranator (Oct 15, 2011)

Peter

The G540 has been perfect and straight forward, nothing really to look out for and if you do have any hassles there is so much support available. I found mine was getting warm when I was doing carvings with 100 000 plus lines so I bought the after market fan kit and now it is sweet.

Warren


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## lensman57 (Oct 15, 2011)

Hi Warren,

I had sourced these GECKO 540 drives here in the UK but the price for me was prohibitive, it is £296.00 plus shipping (approx $500.00) and then I needed the power supply. The whole Chinese TB6560 cost me just over £63.00 including the power supply so I thought it was worth taking a chance, some people have managed to get them working OK. Anyhow if this thing doesn't work out in practice there is always the Gecko or some other option. 

Regards,

A.G


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## warranator (Oct 19, 2011)

Hi AG

The Gecko dealers in the UK must be making a killing. The Driver and PS can be bought direct from the US for about US$250 plus shipping but I do see your point about the TB6560 with that kind of price. I did get mine to work but it was time consuming and frustrating and then after all that the motors made this horrendous screech when running and when idle which I was told is normal. 
Have you got it to work yet? I still have all my documentation and settings if you need them.

Cheers


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## salzburg (Oct 20, 2011)

You need to buy the TB6560 from ebay seller carolbrent. He is an american and sends you a dvd showing the test results of the board he
 is sending you and it only costs you $ 10.00 dollars more than a chinese dealer would charge you. Included in the dvd is the setup of the board
 and the setup with mach3. My board works great.


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## Herbiev (Oct 20, 2011)

Hi all. I just ordered a TB6560 from a dealer in Hong Kong. It set me back $51.00 including postage. Im really looking forward to receiving it and hope i dont get one of the duds. Nothing worse than messing about with warranties. So far it sounds like most boards are ok with just a few duds floating around. Thanks to everyone that posted info on the technical aspects and i will let everyone know how it goes


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## Tin Falcon (Oct 20, 2011)

As many of you know I went the Geckco 540 route. but I did consider xloteck etc.I can see the appeal of less than $50 for a board compared to $300 or more for the G540. especially for the Europe,UK and Ausie folks although Holman Designs out of Australia is a Gecko dealer and IIRC the prices are competitive He even had a sale when he first offered the line. 
An from what I have heard the cheap boards do work but do not push them to the limits. this is a hobby for fun and the funds for fun are sometimes limited. I am looking forward to successful reports. 
Tin


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## warranator (Oct 20, 2011)

I imported mine from the US about 8 months ago and paid AU$240 all up with postage.


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## lensman57 (Oct 21, 2011)

Hi to all,

I rigged up the board with three 1.8 NM-2.1A steppers ( bipolar series) and the parallel port to Mach3. Using the wizard for a circular cut I gave the board a try and it seems to be working and following the commands from Mach3, the motors are not however connected to my X1 yet as I have not bored the flanges for the bearings . So as of yet I still don't know how they will perform in the real world. 
Will keep you all informed.
As for the settings and the config files any help is greatly appreciated.
By the way I just got a quote for a Sherline 5400 cnc ready mill without any tooling or accessories from the agents guess what its £970.00 plus shipping this is nearly $1500.00, I guess the X1 will be with me for a long while yet.

Regards,

A.G


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## tractionengine42 (Oct 22, 2011)

Hi
I converted my sherline, after a long and frustrating journey, the Gecko 540 with a PMDX PCI card was the answer to my problems, this works perfect.
I live in the UK but work in Singapore several months of the year so have a workshop in both locations. The G540 was 350 SGD about 175GBP. UK price is stupid.

My Journey
At first I bought a 4 axis 'sherline' drive control from hongkong via ebay. One drive did not work (after weeks of hassle they sent me a replacement but it was a servo motor driver instead of a stepper motor driver). I used the 3 working drivers and blow 2 computers each after about 10 mins running with mach3. So I have put this to one side for now. I will change the BOB for a cnc4U later as I am sure the one supplied, which has very few components on it, is junk and is the problem.

So I bought the G540 (and another 2nd hand computer) to get up and running quicker, my PC does not have a printerport so I am Using a PCI card. The G540 needs the printer port set to EPP, my cheap ECP/EPP compatible PCI card could not be manually configured and windows was not setting it automatically probably because it does not recognise the driver so the G540 was not working correctly I replaced the PCI card for one from PMDX which worked fine with the G540.
Now I am having a great cnc time.


Nigel


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## Tin Falcon (Oct 22, 2011)

Nigel thanks for sharing your cnc experience. Please do post an introduction in the welcome sub-fora. tell us a bit about yourself your shop(s) and your interests in model engine building. and engines you have built or plan to . an intro will allow us to give a proper welcome. 
Tin


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## lensman57 (Oct 23, 2011)

Hi Nigel,

Thanks for sharing your story.
A while a go a vendor on eBay was advertising a Sherline 5401 , I think, and whole lot of tooling and accessories for Just over £800.00 but the shipping was ridiculous. On top of all that there is the VAT and the import tax to pay so I left it alone. I think the guy was in Malaysia but I could be wrong.
As for the Gecko 540 what kind of steppers are u using and what is the current load of the motors?
A lot of the Chinese stepper motors that are on the UK market seem to be rated at 4.2A in Bipolar parallel or 2.1A in Bipolar series these include the 1.8NM ones that I have.
How are you using yours?

Regards,
A.G


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## Tin Falcon (Oct 23, 2011)

the g540 is rated @ 3.5 amp per axis and has current limiting resistors so you can limit them to 2 or whatever. If I was doing it again I would buy the motors from gecko IIRC $ 59 ea or $55 ea if you buy four. IMHO a good value . But I know it is not easy for you guys to import things taxes etc. 
Tin


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## tractionengine42 (Oct 24, 2011)

Hi AG
My can't be sure about my motors being bipolar or unipolar, they are 4 wire units, not sure if that means the bipolar or unipolar is pre-wired. They came with the controller as part of the Hongkong Sherline conversion kit I have put to one side, I think I can recall something about them being bi-polar but not sure.
Anyway, they are 3 amp and I installed a current limiting resistor as mentioned above by another poster. It's all quite well explained in the G540 documentation available on the website.

I had no problems setting up the G540 once I got my PCI card sorted.

I would seriously consider a smoother stepper next time so that the USB can be used, I hear these work very well. (As usual, knowledge after the event)

Some guys I know in Singapore are building dedicated computers using an "Intel D525MW Mini ITX Motherboard with 1.8Ghz Dual Core Atom 525 CPU" with seemingly good results (for those more computer savi than me). They are using the G540 driver, I think this transpired after another user had the same PCI card problem as me.

Cheers for now

Nigel


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## lensman57 (Oct 24, 2011)

Hi Nigel,

Many thanks for the info.

Regards,

A.G


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## Tin Falcon (Oct 24, 2011)

> I would seriously consider a smoother stepper next time so that the USB can be used,


I have considered adding one as well it is not too late.. 
http://www.soigeneris.com/smoothstepper-details.aspx
Sells a prewired box that just plugs in Or you can just install the SS in your current control box.
Tin


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## crob09 (Jul 2, 2012)

lensman57  said:
			
		

> Hi to everyone,
> 
> On the way to converting the X1 to cnc, I eventually managed to get the driver board to communicate with the MACH3 in jog mode. This board is the red version of the TB6560 chip and it arrived from Hongkong without any documentation or instruction whatsoever even though I had requested the manual twice from the vendor. I post the link that I found usefull in resolving some of the issues with this board and I hope it is of some help with others whom have bought this driver and I hope that the administrators do not mind.
> http://wiki.zentoolworks.com/index.php/Troubleshooting_Tips
> ...



Here is what I have found for pin-out and configuration in Mach3 Ports and Pins:

X axis 2, 3
Y axis 4, 5
Z axis 6, 7

You should have no problems after that, this board has safety features too, I noticed it's better than the Blue TB6560 board found on E-bay and sold out of China. For one if the TB6560 on the Red board gets too warm the board shuts down, Using an ATX is also a very good idea for the same reason.
Also because of how the pins are used on the Red board no conflict exists with Mach3, where with the Blue board Pin#1 is used in stepping one of the axis when it is an Enable All pin in Mach3. 

Not sure how these work with EMC but I will be trying soon and will upload the video.

Cheers,

Rob.

http://whatisacnc.com/driver-board/tb6560/


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## John S (Jul 2, 2012)

I bought a couple of these 6560 driver to try out.
Read up on them and realise they are limited in what they can do but hey they are cheap, you get what you pay for.

Everybody who had problems with them were running at around the 30 volt mark, OK should be good for that but I put a limit of 20 volt on my design. It was going on a little Roland engraver with type 17 motors anyway that cost £65 so no point throwing a Gecko at it ;D

Limit the voltage to 20 volts and setup, tuning was an absolute ***** and the moves were not repeatable, noises from the motors were all over. Found out that forget the micro stepping and run full steps and it's very reliable. Fortunately the Roland is geared down a lot so full steps are no problem.

Would I buy another ? yes if it was going on some shed of a machine but not anything with hi torque motors on it.

End result you get what you pay for.

John S.


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## RonGinger (Jul 2, 2012)

The SeeMeCNC guys used this board with their 3D printer. Someone did a lot of work and determined it has very slow opto couplers. They jumped them out and got good results. There are some reports and photos on the Yahoo group for SeeMeCNC.

I think I agree, its a cheap board and you get exactly what you pay for. I know many guys are on real tight budgets for this kind of stuff, but it seems silly to me to buy cheap and have troubles when just a small extra amount will get you quality parts that are known to work well.


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## crob09 (Jul 3, 2012)

Has anyone here used these TB6560's with EMC? I have no experience with the software but want to give it a try, Mach3 costs money and the trial version only runs a limited number of lines of G-code.

Any tips? Also wondering if configuration works similar to Mach3.

Thanks

Rob

http://www.whatisacnc.com


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## John S (Jul 3, 2012)

Cant see why it wouldn't run with EMC, most of the problems seem to be hardware related, power supplies etc sooner than software.


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## gerritv (Jul 3, 2012)

Stay away from those blue boards, they have a myriad of issues, not least of which is the opto isolators. While jumpering them might improve performance, you now have no isolation! Adding gates, etc is not a solution.

The red board's only known issue is that to get full speed from the V3 boards you need to replace a capacitor on each driver. Removal of heat sink required. This site has info on that mod (in French) http://www.rss-way.com/flux-Civade-com-9598.php
I'm happily using a 4 channel version of the TB6560 3V2 board (it is at 4V3 revision) on a Unimat DB200 with the demo Mach3.

Gerrit


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## imagineering (Jan 3, 2013)

Anyone here know where to source the TB6560 Driver Chips in New Zealand?


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## jollykards (Jun 27, 2013)

Great post, so many thanks for share. TB6560 centered China stepper remotes are really inexpensive and many of us purchased them from eBay or from other resources. These forums have large style mistake and you'll observe unreliable axis activity as well as undesirable disturbance and shouting from the steppers. Here is how we set our forums. Wish it will be useful to you.


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## aarggh (Jun 27, 2013)

So far as I'm aware, while the red has a slightly better PCB layout than the blue one (which is just garbage), the blue and red both suffer from the same opto and power issues, in that the implementation of these controllers require a particular power up/down sequence to avoid blowing the I.C's. The opto layout is more than useless, but given the equally bad grounding design of the PCB,  the noise introduced into the circuit very often causes missteps anyway.

I think they are worse than a pile of steaming crap myself, even though they are cheap, but for light duty purposes they may do okay. Till they die that is.

If a G540 is out of the question, then a Lini or similar would be far better. Google "James Newton cnc driver" for a very well built budget driver that actually works

cheers, Ian


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