Troubleshooting
Start with the symptom you can observe. Apply one change at a time, then retry the smallest Quick Start example.
| Symptom | Check | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| The motor does not turn at all | Is the motor on its own supply, or is it running off the microcontroller? | Give the motor a separate 8.2 V to 45 V supply. Steppers draw far more current than a controller can provide, and the resulting voltage drop or brownout stops the motor turning. |
| The motor only vibrates or judders instead of turning | Are the two coils wired as pairs? | B1 and B2 must go to one coil, A1 and A2 to the other. Swapped or split pairs make the motor vibrate rather than rotate. |
| The motor does not respond to STEP or DIR | Do the driver and the controller share a ground? | Connect the board's signal GND, the pad next to FAULT, to your controller's ground. Without it the control signals have no reference. |
| The motor gets very hot, quickly | Is the current limit set, and are the coils wired correctly? | Set the current limit with the CURRENT trimmer before running the motor, and recheck the coil pairing. Miswired coils draw excessive current and can overheat the motor. |
| Nothing happens on some controller pins but works on others | Are those pins reserved for something else? | Some pins are tied to I2C, UART or are analogue-input only. Move STEP and DIR to plain digital outputs and try again. |
| The sketch runs but the motor never moves | Is run() being called often enough? | run() and runSpeed() step the motor once per call. Call them every pass through loop(), with no long delays in between, and check that speed and acceleration are set above zero. |
| Only one motor of two behaves | Does the problem follow the motor or stay with the board? | Swap in another stepper motor. If the replacement works, the original motor is at fault. |
Still blocked?
Ask on the community forum. Include the following so someone can reproduce it:
- product name and SKU: Stepper Motor Driver DRV8825 Board,
333000 - controller board and software environment
- library or module revision
- complete error text or unexpected output
- connection method and power source
- a clear photo of the wiring