I have the old Red Shapeoko with Stepoko controller board. The Z channel driver is blown. This is the 2nd or 3rd time it needs repair (I would have to check old email but pretty sure its been repaired twice). Anyway my machine is down and I need a replacment / repair on the Stepoko. How does one get support these days?
Sadly SparkFun no longer carries this product and doesn’t have repair parts for it. We recommend using a different controller board, [Carbide 3D makes a board that may work for you.](Carbide Motion PCB for Shapeoko - Carbide 3D)
Hey @johnelle - I know this is a super old post, but I was curious how you knew the driver chip was blown. I have the same machine and just got it back up and running only for UGS to stop registering the X-Axis, and the X-Direction LED on the board no longer lights up.
Its been a long time. I converted my Shapeoko to a Carbide controller after having two failures on the board (plus they never really supported it Shapeoko).
As I recall there were some physical indications of overheating around the chip but Sparkfun wouldn’t declare it broken until one of their technicians declared it broken. Back then they actually had support people repairing boards. Depending on your needs I would highly recommend buying a replacement elsewhere. Good controllers are widely available and this thing was not a good piece of hardware.
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Yeah, that’s the route I’m looking at if I can’t get this board back up.
While I do want to do it as cheaply as possible, I realize the Carbide board is a really good deal for $150. Just trying to decide if I want to find a separate board and drivers and make it a whole custom machine, which does sound like a lot of fun…
And thank you for replying with that info!