Messages

21

General Mach Discussion / Re: motors not turning - please help (newbie)

« on: June 01, 2011, 01:40:08 AM »

hi Brian, I had the same issue as well but it was only with one axis. It would spin beautifully in the one direction and when I jogged in the other direction, it would still move very slowly in the same direction as before, but very noisily (like a misfiring engine)
I isolated the problem by checking if it was the motors or the drivers or the board. It seemed to be coming from the board so I changed the (board outputs to drivers) numbers from 4 / 5  to 6 /7, and moved the axis outputs from 6/7 to 8/9. (essentially not using the number 4/5 outputs from the board). I also the changed the ports and pins output for the relevant axees in MAch 3 number ports and pins.

Not sure if it all makes sense to you but I will send pics, which will explain it no prob if you dont understand what I am saying.

regards
Thys

22

General Mach Discussion / Re: motors not turning - please help (newbie)

« on: May 31, 2011, 01:27:06 AM »

Hi Brian, I am by no means the expert, but I do know the frustration of not getting your motors going. can you send me a pic of your wiring.
did you test your parallel cable with a multi meter?
under config in mach 3, ports and pins, input signals, did you check the estop to 0?
under the same section under motor outputs, have you set the direction and step pin numbers?
give me your email and I can send some wiring pics etc you to and other stuff which Tweakie sent me, which helped me in the end.
I really hope you are able to solve this soon, it's great playing with the cnc.
regards
Thys

23

General Mach Discussion / Re: motors not turning - please help (newbie)

« on: May 10, 2011, 02:13:03 AM »

To all those reading this thread as reference purposes, please note that the sherline 1/2 pulse checked sorted out the problem. the motors are turning fine now. Tweaky was fantastic is assisting me patiently to isolate the problem.
May thanks to the adminstrators for setting up this forum. it was a life saver.
Heres to a long happy cnc journey!
Thys

24

General Mach Discussion / Re: motors not turning - please help (newbie)

« on: May 09, 2011, 08:06:40 AM »

thanks, just mailed you
Thys

25

General Mach Discussion / Re: motors not turning - please help (newbie)

« on: May 09, 2011, 07:57:46 AM »

Hi Tweaky, tried to attach images but keeps giving me an error, could I email them to you?
Or any other way of getting them posted?
regards
Thys

26

General Mach Discussion / Re: motors not turning - please help (newbie)

« on: May 09, 2011, 06:27:06 AM »

I am heading home for lunch soon, will take pic and post in an hour.
thanks for your assistance. so much appreciated.
Thys

27

General Mach Discussion / Re: motors not turning - please help (newbie)

« on: May 09, 2011, 06:12:49 AM »

thanks Tweakie, will def test the parallel cable. I bought the breakout board and the motor drivers and motors from Keling (incl power supply for the motor drivers - output  36V measured and confirmed).
Please would you explain how and where to test for output voltage.

Out of interest, my board is powered by a 5v transformer. I did notice that when I plug the parallel cable into the board, I saw the power led light come on, on the breakout board. then when I switched the power on of the transformer (external power source) , the light shon a little brighter. Mean anything?

28

General Mach Discussion / Re: motors not turning - please help (newbie)

« on: May 09, 2011, 05:39:23 AM »

Hi Tweakie, I will do, I did run the test the other day and it said system excellent (if I remember correctly) , but I will run again to make sure. I will also test the parrallel port. I made it up myself so I need to check nothing have come loose etc.

If the driver test comes back ok, does that mean that there is no prob with the driver of the pc, or that everything is ok with the motor drivers on the board I built up?
If one pin or two is faulty on the parallel cable, would that maybe cause the problem I am currently experiencing?

thanks for your assistance so far.

regards
Thys

29

General Mach Discussion / Re: motors not turning - please help (newbie)

« on: May 09, 2011, 03:25:44 AM »

Hi Guys, some more details to my problem to help me diagnose the issue.
I checked the settings of step and dir lines and they seem fine as per my book (build your own cnc)
I have marked the e-stop value to 1 to 0.
Port 1 enable and number is 0x378

The problem which i am not able to sort out is getting windows xp to load the mach 3 driver.
- when I check the driver details in the device manager, it still says the old windows driver with a 2001 date or something. I tried to delete the driver and reload from the mach 3 software but still no luck.

do you guys think that this could be the issue..
if not, could it be the break out board, I am not sure how to isolate this to check if it is the issue. I have double checked my wiring and it all looks 100%.

Just a recap, the motors initialise, I can hear the sound they make when they kick in, the software shows the g code instructions i give it but the motors aren't turning,

thanks BR549 for your suggestions so far, please can anybody help me!
thanks
Thys

30

General Mach Discussion / motors not turning - please help (newbie)

« on: May 06, 2011, 06:11:34 PM »

Hi Guys, I'm Thys. A newbie to this forum and to cncing. I have just built a mdf cnc machine, motors fitted, software loaded and drivers and power supply wired up etc, but I cannot get the motors to turn using simple g code to move them.
I have Mach3 loaded and am using g00 x1 and similar ro try and move the motors.

When I switched the power supply on for the motor drivers, I could hear them initialise and I even heard a little jump on the motor the first time I send a command through, but now nothing. I see the numbers moving on the computer screen, but no action on the cnc machine. Please could a ""saint"" help me!! Did I mention, it's midnight!

kind regards
Thys