I have 8 stepper motor driven rails I've collected over time (long time), Stackshot, WeMacro, THK and MJKZZ (Your RS-90), some have 200 and some 400 steps per rotation motors. They all make noise in varying degrees, from high pitched "whines" while stationary to "groaning" while moving. The high pitched whines didn't bother me much as I could barely hear them, but my wife sure couldmant01 wrote:The rail makes all sorts of noises, from high pitch screeching, low droning to sounding like air escaping. It stops every time it takes a step forward and then the noise changes to something else. When I spoke with seller about potential vibrations from it he just said it's normal and it won't make a difference. I also messaged the manufacturer a couple days ago but haven't heard back yet. The rail does have a voltage setting for both active and when not in use but I left it on default. I'll try adjusting it to see if that makes a difference.
As far as micro stepping in the program it has a calculator where you put the details of what you are using and settings etc. then it recommends a step size.
Side note, I posted a different thread where it looks like I might be having a problem with triggers and flashes going off at slightly different times. I was wondering could this be a cause of doubling up? Like different areas being highlighted depending on when the flashes hit while the shutter is open? Probably not but just a thought.
The THK KR20 modified rails are the loudest, with a very loud "groan" when moving forward or backwards. They really get loud if you increase the rail speed under the Stackshot controller, and I do mean LOUD
As Chris mentioned, if you can hear it somethings moving. This was concerning to me long ago as I brought this very subject up on a thread somewhere. Rik indicated he had been concerned as well but found no image degradation due to the motor noise/whine, which occurred while stationary. I had found the same, but still bothered by the fact that something IS moving! So I set out to minimize the noise and realized that the stepper motors use multiple windings energized at different times to create the microstepping capability. Since the magnetic cogs in the motor are positioned such that the rotor naturally rests being magnetically held in place without any additional electromagnet influence it seemed that when energized this would require less winding current to "hold" the rotor in place. While with microstepping the rotor must be held between cogs electromagnetically, thus more winding current required and thus more possible noise from the winding current inducement. So positioning the rotor such that it didn't have to straddle the magnetic cogs should require less winding current and thus produce less noise. This proved true will all my rails and stepper motors, some more than others...and worked with the Stackshot and WeMacro controllers. This didn't eliminate the noise but did reduce it some, so now I try and position my stacking steps such that they are integer steps of the stepper motor/rail thread pitch minimum. I haven't seen any degrading image effects from this noise, nor microstepping vs. not, but it just seemed a better engineered solution to me. Being an engineer/scientist I'm always looking for a better engineered solution, if I can afford it
Your setup can act as a sounding board as well, so you might be able to reduce the noise intensity by looking here.
A simple test you can perform to evaluate IF the noise is causing image degradation is take an image at high magnifications with the motor engaged and retake the same image with the motor disengaged. After comparing these images you can decide if the noise is causing degradation. In my case it didn't.
Anyway, hopefully you don't have to replace your motor or rail.
Best,
Mike