Idle current reduction harmful when carving long lines?

[JustinBusby]

@RohanSingh

with the idle current reduction in the X-Controller, if I’m carving a long line that’s perpendicular to an axis, that axis will have reduced torque but will still be experiencing full load.

Yes. If you’re moving only in the Y direction, X and Z loses torque. Similar goes for in the X direction, Y and Z lose torque.

@RohanSingh

I’m leaning toward completely disabling idle current reduction for this reason. Does anyone else have any input on this? Is there something incorrect in my understanding?

I disabled mine many months ago. I’ve made numerous posts on this same topic and I advocate most people to turn it off on all 3 axis.

I’ve also not had any heat related issues with it off.

X controler free axis movment

I just looked into this because I made the change to disable auto torque. With it enabled and no motion (the reduction circuitry is triggered off the X/Y/Z step lines), it reduces the reference voltage for the stepper driver to 30% of the set value from the pots (per the driver datasheet). That’s a pretty large reduction. In a “typical” carve, only the Z axis goes idle which may be okay since it is screw driven. But in a raster carve where you may have X or Y idle, that could introduce cut issu…