Machsupport Forum
Third party software and hardware support forums. => Third party software and hardware support forums. => Topic started by: Zilna on March 15, 2013, 07:01:02 PM
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I have a C10 BOB with kl-4030 stepper drive and kl23h286-20-8b motors. The only power to the BOB is from my computer's parallel port as stated in the tutorial (I have tried it with the 5v power supply as well and no difference). I have wired the motors up matching the wires (wht/blue and blue) according to a wiring diagram that I found online for this motor. Wht/Blu and Blue to A+, Wht/Red and Red to A-, Wht/Grn and Grn to B+, and Wht/Blk and Blk to B-. I can still turn the motors. The switches on the stepper drive are set for 1/8 and 2.7v. I have gone through the settings in Mach3 according to the tutorial and still cannot get a single motor to move. Been racking our brains over this for 3 days now and am now just beyond frustrated. I know that some times the simplest solutions can make all the difference but I am out of ideas on how to make this work.
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Update ... found yet another wiring diagram, this one with actual wording on it and the wires were wrong from the stepper drive to the motor. Wired it up with white stripes on the positives and solids on the negatives (red and blue on A and green and black on B) and now the motor cannot be turned by hand. Still cannot get Mach3 to actually move the motors tho.
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Are you getting the signals our of your parallel port? What Operateing system are you running? If your useing a parallel port, how does the driver test look?
Brett
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Am running Windows 7 32-bit; yeah I found out all about the 64 bit after the first day of racking my brain lol. The driver test actually worked with the 32-bit stating that it is excellent. Not on the actual pc right now that is connected to the machine so no exact numbers to offer right now. How do you check for signals coming out of the parallel port? I can say that I am getting 8 pins lit up on the diagnostics screen if that helps.
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Do you have a DVOM?
Brett
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Yes. 4.7v from the PC. At B- almost 20v, 17.99 at B+, 1.99 at A+, and 2.02 at A-. I "thought" that I should be getting less at B than A so not sure what is going on.
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Where is this B+ and B- coming from? I'm assuming you are meaning these are to the motor from the drive or to the drive from the stepper power supply? If your getting those voltages out of your parallel port, you definatley need to trace some wires out. I suggest you unplug your cable at the C10 and check your signals at the cable on the end you just unplugged. The cable needs to be a straight thru. pin for pin on each end....... pin1, pin 1 pin2, pin2 etc. Some cables are not wired like this.
Brett
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Ok, the voltage readings from the parallel port are just shy of 5v. The voltages that I gave are from the stepper drive to the motor. Sorry if I am not being very detailed, wiring is not my specialty.
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No problem, if you have everything set up correctly in Mach then you have to figure out where you are looseing the signals. The db 25 connector should have numbers on it that show what number each pin is. It's easier to check the direction pins than the step because the step are usually pulsing so fast (this will be seen similar to a PWM signal but the voltage will most likely vary only slightly from inactive to active), the direction will stay active until the direction is changed. You can start at either end you want. At the drive or at the parallel port, but you need to find out where the signal is being lost at and if your PC is in fact sending the signals in the first place. Did you check the cable to see if it is a straight thru?
Brett
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Yes, we checked the cable yesterday and it is a straight through. It's a brand new cable and parallel port which according to the device manager the port is functioning properly. If I actually owned a parallel printer I would hook it up and test it out but mine is wireless. Tell me something, in Mach3 on the diagnostics screen should all of the pins be lit up green?
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Or is it possible for someone to post a screen shot of a properly functioning diagnostics screen so I know what we are working toward achieving?
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I would post you a screen shot but my machine is down right now. Building a new control cabinet. You can use your meter and check the output pins that you assigned to your axis step and direction signals.
Brett
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The pins are roughly 5v each. I did have a few dead one's (pin 15 for example) not sure if they should have no reading?? When trying to move the motor with the arrow keys there is no change in voltage, is that right?
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You should be able to see a change in voltage from the db 25 pins for the step and direction signals. Choose a pin you have set up as a direction pin for any axis and hook one lead of the meter to it and the other lead on meter to ground or 5 volts (depending if your driveing logic low or high). It should change when you try to jog in one direction or the other so with the meter connected jog in both directions and see if your reading changes.
Brett
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Are there any known compatibility issues with any parallel port cards? We are certain that the wiring is correct and that there is nothing wrong with the PC. This leads us to only two things; the card and the cable, both of which are brand new. Going to try to load up an older computer we have laying around and see what happens.
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There could be tons of things going on. Trouble shooting is one step at the time. If you test those outputs with a meter you will have an idea where to start, Could very well be your parallel port isnt configured correctly, wrong drivers, who knows? Only one way to find out. I have sent you a PM.
Brett
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So, after getting PC #2 to come on, yeah it's been sitting for a year lol, we installed Mach3 and ran through the settings and voila! the motors are turning! So now the determination is that the new card we put in our main PC is no good. Going to go ahead and save the settings and move them over to the main PC to double check but we're fairly certain that it won't work. Thank you for your help Brett! Troubleshooting can be a major pain and it certainly makes you rack your brain. Just glad that we had another PC sitting around to work with. We had that one laying around because there was something wrong with it, but we diagnosed it to be the video card and just removed it and used the onboard.
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:) Your making progress.
Brett
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Hi there, don't know what breakout board you are using but I just bought one from Austarlia and it has LEDs on each
cahnnel and you can see them blinking on and off as you offer instuctions from Mach3. Certainly made it easy to hook
up drives and confirm port/pin assignments.