Hey guys, thanks in advance for the help. I'm pretty new to the electronics side of CNC, but I'm building a fairly large (4x8) CNC router. I'm trying to get my motors wired and working properly with Mach3 but I'm running into a problem. I'm using DQ860MA drivers, 5.6A Nema 34 motors, a C11G breakout board and an ethernet SmoothStepper.

My motors lock but do not turn when I use the hotkeys to move. I've checked the hotkeys, and the smoothstepper lights up as it should when connected. The C11g board's power appears to be on. I don't know what's going on. I've spent the better part of the last 3 days trying to figure it out. It seems that power is going to the motors, but the signals from Mach3 are not going to them.

I think the problem might be my port number. I found the ethernet port by going to device manager and filtering devices by connection. Nothing was highlighted, but I selected the only ethernet port I could see which happened to have an address of 0001. I don't know if this is the right way of doing it, and it seems to me that if my port is wrong that might be the cause of the problem. But honestly I have no idea.

Has anyone had this problem before or does anyone know what a potential solution might be? Thanks again for all your help.

Hi,
I'm not sure about this Ethernet Port business? If you run the Warp9 SCU  setup utility the ESS should be set up,
there is need to chose a port.

One simple way to test the ethernet comms to the ESS is to use an Estop on the BoB which is in turn connected to the ESS.
If you activate the Estop the BoB will signal the ESS of the event and if the ethernet comms and plugin are intact the ESS will signal
Mach which will of course Estop.

Craig

After running the ESS utility, don't you still need to go to the Config option in Mach3 and set up the port and pins? Perhaps I've just misunderstood this whole thing...

Also I haven't wired my Estop into the board yet. Before doing that I wanted to make sure that my motors were working.

Hi,

don't you still need to go to the Config option in Mach3 and set up the port and pins?

Yes, that is correct, but that is not an Ethernet issue, all that does is select which of the three ports you have
hooked your BoB to.

Craig

OH! I see. Thanks so much! Looking at a diagram of the ESS it looks like I'm on port 2, rather than port 1. Hopefully fixing that will solve the problem...

Fixing that did not solve the problem. Could it be because I have two power supplies, one for the ESS and one for the C11g board? I don't know if I'm supposed to have 1 or 2.

Alright, I have tried a bunch of stuff and nothing has worked. I uninstalled Mach3 and set it up again. I double and triple checked my wiring diagram with the one given. I checked the jumpers. I changed the ports.

I still have absolutely no idea what is going on. Any other ideas?

are the axis dro's changing if you use the jog keys?

are the axis dro's changing if you use the jog keys?

They are. However, aside from the power light there are no lights on on the C11G board and the motors do not move.