Hi,
When I bought the machine the whole box was so hot I wasn't able to touch it, I'm not sure where the heat came from but I suspect that it came from the big round thing in the box not the drivers but I could be wrong. (sorry I'm not sure of the name of all the parts yet) I added the fans and the box is very cool, but your were talking about dust I don't have filters so I am getting alitte bit of dust in the box, mostly wood dust.
The round thing is the transformer, its what is called a toroidal transformer. Transformers produce a lot of heat and it is the most likely source of your heat. Wood dust wont harm in small quantities but let it build up and it will start to insulate things and hold the heat into the components inside the box so filters or a regular blast with air to clean is in order
What did you think of the pictures of the wiring for my machine? Does any thing look out of order?
How do you shield the wires? or what is a shielded cable?
Hard to tell from the pic but it does look OK. Shileding is like a metal braid that surrounds all the wires inside a cable, it can also be a foil wrap. The wires that should really be shielded are limits wire, motor wires and possibly step direction wires. The shielding should really only be connected to ground at one end, usually the control box end.
I have my power cord for my router with my z axis wire and then my y axis comes together as well, my x axis is separate and I have had the machine mess up in that axis too???
I dont think noise is your problem really but thats just my gut feeling.
Is the current resistor on the Geckos correct? Can you see it in the pic, I think Hood said it was the right one.
Need to know the motors Amps before I can say.
In Windows BIOS my com port 1 is set to EPP, is that right? There is two other settings ECP and Bi-directional.
Should be OK but if you feel the need no harm in trying a different setting
My baud rate is at 9600, should that be set higher?
Nope, should be ok at that
I have leadscrews with .1 pitch also with plastic anti-vibration nut just so you know, you asked earlier.
The Gecko drivers are not mounted on heatsinks or with heat transfer paste, just mounted to aluminum plates.
Should be OK, the Alu will act as a heat sink and unless you are running full current (your not BTW) the integrated heatsinks in the geckos will do a decent job.
How do I find out what amps per phase for the steppers? and the limit resistors for the geckos?
You will need to either find a plate on the motors, or ask the builders what the motor specs are. The resistors are colour coded, once you find out the Amps you can then check the resistor is correct, I suspect it will be .
It seems like the whole machine screws up all axis freeze up and the motors moan and then they release and the machine is out of location in at least two axis depends on what type of program I'm running.
Sounds like typical steppers when they loose steps by being pushed too far.
I know that's alot of questions and statements please spend your time and answer them I would really appreciate it.
Thanks for your time,
Greg
I have tried
My turn for the questions
Have you got Enhanced pulse enabled? if not please do it.
Also have you turned off Backlash comp if it wass turned on?
Hood