Hi,
I am a student. I broke one odrive while working on a project. So I have a question, do I need an usb to usb isolator between the computer and the USB hub in this schematic?
Not necessarily required, if your computer is grounded or you’ll get a lot of noise then you might want to
1 Like
Generally yes it’s required. There are only very limited situation when it’s ok to skip the USB isolator, and it’s very rare to see an acceptable situation in a system with several modules.
For example, how are you sending commands to your stepper driver? You probably have some logic board sending the steps. I drew an Arduino here, but it could be something else, and it could be directly connected to PC instead of USB hub, the principle is the same: you have a logic network sharing ground with a power network. This is bad. You get a ground loop that involves the motor power current, which can cause damage to the logic boards.
I drew a ground loop in purple.
1 Like