On an A4988 it's usually easy to adjust them by feel, but with the DRV8825's, that rarely works.
The one thing that adjusting by Vref does do, is hopefully eliminate the stepper drivers as a source of issues when you're building the printer. Especially with some designs, it's easy to end up with issues caused by an axis binding in some/many places, which will still cause the motors to stall. If the Vref is set appropriately, then you're pushing the steppers to their max current/torque, so any issues are either:
- A bug in your assembly that is causing binding
- A bug in the design that is causing binding
The one thing that adjusting by Vref does do, is hopefully eliminate the stepper drivers as a source of issues when you're building the printer. Especially with some designs, it's easy to end up with issues caused by an axis binding in some/many places, which will still cause the motors to stall. If the Vref is set appropriately, then you're pushing the steppers to their max current/torque, so any issues are either:
- A bug in your assembly that is causing binding
- A bug in the design that is causing binding