Messages

41

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steppers making noise but shafts not rotating

« on: August 18, 2012, 09:54:10 AM »

AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!

 I new I should not have wired up that last stepper motor on Thursday night. I swapped a Green wire for a Blue wire.

I'll have it up in 90 minutes!

42

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steppers making noise but shafts not rotating

« on: August 18, 2012, 12:59:06 AM »

Tweakie, All,

  I received the G540 from Gecko on Wednesday but the package lacked the DB9 connectors. I checked out the G540 as far as the Fault LED and the Green Power LED functioning as described. I now have two of the three motors turning in both directions. One stepper motor does not function in any of the axis but the other two function in three of the axis connections.
  Hurray for small points.

  The stepper motors are from a Chinese company named Goodluckbuy. Please stay away from this site as they may do to you what they have done to me. They did not ship the power supply so I had to fight with them for several weeks and ended up going to Visa to get the refund for the supply they did not ship to me.
  Well, bad new now as one of the stepper motors is not working and they will not respond to any email I send. I'd say this is total customer loss on their part and I hope they lose everyone that reads this post.

  Sorry to bash but I have seen the same on many other blogs

  Has anyone ever taken a stepper motor apart? Looks like four screws from my point of view.
CES

43

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steppers making noise but shafts not rotating

« on: August 14, 2012, 11:43:15 PM »

I received the Gecko G540 today. A rather nice looking package. The documentation I thought I'd receive with the board was non-existent, however, the internet turned up the manual in about 30 seconds.

Reading the documentation I find that I was to receive four (4) DB9 connectors with the package but did not receive them so I searched my electronics boxes and found nothing. Off the email the company but will probably drive the 30 miles to get them tomorrow.

  Now comes the interesting part. The Gecko documentation states that I need to know the inductance of the motors and of coarse, China did not send any data on these motors and I have search the web to no end - 57BYGH76-401A 1.8" Any knowledge about these little motors?

  Then the documentation says to connect the power supply to the 12 pin connector but does not go into the connection block till many pages later so I sat here scratching my head. I'll just read and not do for now.

CES
p.s. I'm hoping to be Zooming in a few days 

44

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steppers making noise but shafts not rotating

« on: August 11, 2012, 05:04:50 PM »

Well, the latest is that the motors have stopped turning. I do not like this Chinese POS.

45

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steppers making noise but shafts not rotating

« on: August 11, 2012, 02:54:43 PM »

Tweakie,
  Thanks. The motor was so hot that I could not keep my hand on it so very fricking warm. I am running 100% at this point. So down to 75% might be the right solution.

Rich,
  Yes, I have a very good idea of the possibilities. The first motor was the X axis and had 2^12 combinations and took me days. The second was very much shorter due to me noticing that pins 8 and 2 were somehow connected to the Y axis. The possibilities here were only 121 or 2 X 11 and none of them worked. The Z axis only had 7 combinations and I have not found any that turn the motor in both directions.

I believe the possible pins are 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10,11,14,16,17
For the X tried each one in Dir and Step for 2 ^12 but I was lucky in noticing that pin 1 stepped the X or I hoped it did. As I went through all the rest of the pins I found that pin 5 and 6 kicked the Z axis (made it tick but not move and that pins 8 and 2 ticked the Y axis. so things were a little shorter than they could have been.

  I now have X Step as pin 1 and X Dir as pin 7 and this axis turns in both directions.
  I also have Y Step as pin 8 and Y Dir as pin 2 but this axis does not turn in both directions.
  I also have Z Step as pin 5 and Z Dir as pin 6 but this axis also does not spin in both directions.

  On both the Y and Z axis I have tried all of the other combinations with both Dir and Step swapped and this is the only settings that give me shaft movement.

CES

46

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steppers making noise but shafts not rotating

« on: August 11, 2012, 10:45:27 AM »

Hi Tweakie,

  I changed native units to metric and that is what got the shafts moving. After I found a pin setting that moved the X axis in both directions the motor got very warm meaning DC current was being run through it. Have I said that I really hate this "Blue hyu68 3 axis driver" board?
  I was not given documentation with this Chinese board and the manufacturer will not respond to emails.

  Still can't wait for the Gecko board.
CES

 

47

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steppers making noise but shafts not rotating

« on: August 10, 2012, 10:31:06 PM »

Anybody still monitoring this thread? I changed the pin mapping and found a setup that turns the motors in one direction. Any idea why only in one direction?

Thanks much,
CES

48

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steppers making noise but shafts not rotating

« on: August 10, 2012, 09:44:01 AM »

I looked for a fix and found what might be a reasonable fix for the Chinese Blue 3 or 4 axis driver board. If you have similar issues as described in this thread, please check out cncZone thread:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/general_electronics_discussion/110986-how_i_fixed_my_chinese-6.html

(Sorry for cross website posting but it is related and may help others)

This problem is definitely NOT a Mach3 issue but rather a poor design issue. The pulses from the PP card are not being propagated to the motor driver very well which causes poor response at best and as I have seen, no response.

Waiting for my Gecko 540 
CES

49

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steppers making noise but shafts not rotating

« on: August 08, 2012, 11:53:48 PM »

John,

  Great suggestion and I just tried it. That's what I'd call Out-of-the-Box thinking. But, unfortunately, it did not help.  I tried all eight possible connections even swapping A and B wires.
  I tried to move the PP card but it will not change addresses, it is stuck at 0x8C00 so the port monitor parmon will not find it.
 
  I have ordered a GECKO 540. That should fix the issue. Wish me luck and I'll be back Aug. 13th (the date the GECKO 540 will arrive).
I will keep monitoring the thread and keep trying to get this card running. (I still have a Lathe I will need to convert)

  My thanks to all that helped.

50

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steppers making noise but shafts not rotating

« on: August 08, 2012, 10:22:12 AM »

What company makes a good PP card and what company makes a good CNC driver board? I'd like to get them ordered.

Any suggestions?