Re: Motors only vibrate but will not turn

I don't know if you ever solved your problem with your stepper motors. However, I had the same problem and was able to determine the solution. See below:


After DAYS of searching for the cure to my stepper motor problems - stepper motor just vibrates/won't spin, I finally found the ANSWER!!!

Thanks to Triffid Hunter - see below:

Original question from another builder:

Getting ready to wire the arduino to the steppers.

what color goes to what pin?

Triffid Hunter:

1) as long as you get the pairs correct, exact order doesn't matter. 

2) to find a pair, short out two wires. if the motor becomes harder to turn by hand, you found a pair! The remaining two wires are the other pair

3) if the motor runs backwards when you wire it up according to this simple method, simply plug it in the other way, or invert the direction in your firmware configuration.


4) the pairs' wires are adjacent in the plug, ie:
 x    x    x    x
[pair 1][pair 2]

5) this method will work for all 4-wire steppers.


The arduino has the stepper motor pins labeled as 2B, 2A, 1A, 1B in that order

I was incorrectly wiring the stepper motor coils to the corresponding LETTERS A & B instead of the NUMBERS!!!

I was wiring them as follows:

1A - 2A to one set of coils and 1B - 2B to the second set of coils - WHICH IS WRONG!!

So the correct wiring for the stepper motors is:

1A - 1B connects to one set of coils and
2A - 2B connects to the second set of coils

Hopefully, this will help others out there! Now I'm just waiting on the rest of my parts to arrive so I can build my first 3d printer! I'm sure I'll have a lot more issues to resolve along the way, but at least I'm not alone. :)-D