stepper motor connections

[mogenheid]

I have yet to do my first print. I am trying to get good manual control of the axes before i print. I had trouble with the z-axis which was fixed by increasing the driver board voltage to max around 1.5v. The x-axis gave stuttering problems but was fixed my wiggling the loose connection at the x-axis motor. I ended up ductaping the connection so it pulls to one side constantly and there is no more stuttering. The y axis works sometimes and other times stutters. I have watched many times to try and figure out why it is stuttering. The only conclusion ive made is a poor connection to the motor. When i jiggle the connection when the pwer supply is on i can feel pulses like with the x axis motor connection when it was jittering.

My question is there any known way to make a better connection to the motor?

I have considered running female-to-male extenders from the motor and sautering the connection wire to the extensions somehow, but I would like to know if a better way exists.

[Mark]

Find a good connector...

[mogenheid]

Thanks for the wonderfully constructed response, It helped immensely. But contrary to your advice i was able to fix my problem another way. I was unable to find a 4 pin to 6 pin connector wire. So what I did was: I had for a previous project ordered male to female extension wires. I tried using these but they were too big and did not fit the stepper motor connections. So i clipped off the end of the female end of the wire to reveal a square cylinder of metal. the square cylinder was too big for the stepper motor so i crimped the end of the extension wire to make a more snug fit on the stepper motor. I then replaced each connection with crimped extension wire so each stepper motor had a snug fit. I have had successful prints sense then

before this the motors would suddenly start grinding and crap out. this was because the connection of the control board and the stepper motor would be moved and a loss of signal would occur.

[Mark]

Good job. maybe you can post a picture here if someone has the same problem.