extruder not moving

I have a problem with 1 stepper. All others move with pronterface.exe except the extruder. It will make noise and very very small movement when you click extrude. Can anyone suggest anything I am so bad at this.

Did you try it with the motor removed from the extruder? Maybe your gears are to tight and they locked.
If it still clicks when removed, check the wires as in continuity, connection and correct order.
If it still clicks, maybe your pololu power must be adjusted.
(roughly some points, could be something else though )

thx for the reply, I think I must have fried the pololu because the motor still works fine, if I plug the extruder cable into another driver/pololu it does work fine. I am thinking maybe its the driver/pololu thats gone west. How can I test it to be sure its at fault?

Other then plugging the motor to see if it works, there is not much testing you can do with conventional tools, since it works on PWM. You could test the leads with a voltmeter: even when not moving, the motor is powered to maintain its holding torque. Hence you should get X volts on A+ and A- leads and Y volts on B+ and B- leads. X and Y are not necessarily equal, depending on the position of the motor shaft at that moment. Also keep in mind that most boards power the motors off after 60s or 120s of idling, based on the firmware settings.

To my experience, a pololu usually either works, or it does nothing. Yours sounds like it is powering a coil only, clicking instead of moving smoothly. Do you get the same resistance on your A+/A- and B+/B- leads?

Check your wiring to the motor. My extruded stopped moving this morning. Just fogged back and forh. Had a broken wire at the connector.
Fixed wire and all is good.

thx for the replys,

Yes Spk64 mine is doing the same thing it barly comes on and goes off. The I can't get a reading with the voltmeter as it does not settle long enough to read because its turning on then off. The problem is not with the leads as I have tried all other motor connectors on this driver and none work.. I don't know whats up with it. This is a proper stuggle and now this...

"Comes on and goes off" translates to that only one coil is powered. The motion is performed by successively powering the coils for a circular motion of the shaft around the coils. Only one coil being powered, the motion is not continued through the other coil, and the shaft reverts to the previous position. It's actually based on partial powering the coils to obtain each of the microsteps, but anyway.
Hence, connect to the board with pronterface (or whatever you are using) so that the motors are powered (just powered, not moving). Then measure the A+/A- and B+/B- pairs for voltage. Even if the motor is not moving, you should get some voltage on both pairs. If your pololu is broken, you will probably get voltage on one pair only.

sorry for my ignornace/stupidity what exactly to connect the probes to?

Connect the probes directly to the pins on the board, where the end-plug of your motor wire is connected. Most of the boards have the pins labelled A+ A- B+ B- or something similar. Usually the first 2 are one coil, the other 2 are the other coil. But, you might want to double check with your board documentation, if you are not sure. If done properly and done in the timeframe while the motors are powered down due to idle time, you should get some voltage reading on both A and B pairs.
Obviously, avoid shorting anything around there - a pololu to replace is $10, a whole board is much more

**** I had about 15 seconds to measure the voltage after about 20 mins of drumming sounds. This is hard!! Will keep trying till I can get back with a proper responce, thx man!

I would use one of those small croc clips to secure the probes and get instant measurement. Or you can re-upload your firmware with extended idle time (DEFAULT_STEPPER_DEACTIVE_TIME for Marlin, for example).

By the way, I assume you set your correct Vref voltage for the pololu.

hi MPower,

I get around 5.4V for the first 2 pins and around the same for the next 2 pins.
I believe the trim pot? is set correctly anyway, the motor does not come on 'properly' when I adjust the trimpot, it just makes more noise.

If it outputs voltage on both pairs, the pololu is probably fine and your motor connection is faulty at some point. With the motor plugged out, measure the resistance of the pairs, at its end connector. That is the resistance between A+ and A-, then B+ and B-. You should get the same ohms on both pairs. If one pair reads zero, one or both of the wires of that pair are not continuous - that explains why one of the coils does not get powered.
In addition, there is a chance that the wire lead breaks the circuit when bent in your specific position when connected to the board.

Or, you could just move a verified motor (X/Y/Z) to the nasty pololu connector and see if it acts right.

Yes, the Vref at the pot. It should be set according to your motor specs. There is a formula on the wiki page for example. Having it too low might make the motor wiggle instead of moving smooth, too high will overheat and damage your pololu.

''Or, you could just move a verified motor (X/Y/Z) to the nasty pololu connector and see if it acts right.'
I have said no matter which motor connector is connected to this driver I get the same responce. With the motor off I don't seem to get a reading with the volt meter?

I have tried swapping the pololu and found the pololu works if inserted into another slot. So its not the motors, wires, pololu it must be the board? Or perhaps software? I have prevoiusly had all 4 drivers working. I don't know what could have gone wrong. I did try and adjust config for the extruder. It stopped working right at this point as I was altering #define STEPS_PER_M_E.
After I changed this value and uploaded to arduino then checked to see if the extruder is working faster I found it to be moving very very slowly (rocking back and forth). This is when it has occured. Don't know if the upload was to blame but it seemed to happen right after it. Don't know if this is useful information but I can't think of anything else useful.

Maybe you have set the steps far too high for the motor to keep up with, or possibly so low that the motor is barely moving. Also try sending the command manually to confirm it isn't a software issue, type:
G1 E10 F20

If set to absolute extrusion this only works once unless you zero E (using G92 E0) or keep increasing the value of E.

Finally Marlin will not extrude if the extruder thermistor is cold or disconnected, it's worth checking this temp hasn't been set too high (cold extrude will usually display an error.)

the command you gave me made it work! Brilliant. I find it strange though that the software seems to be at fault as the problem occured on one of the 4 drivers. Anyway I will try and start a fresh and report back if I can get it all going.

well this is changeable. Now I have started fresh reinstalled and uploaded and compiled and it still has the same issue, last driver does not work. Now the command G1 E10 F20 you sent me does not do the trick either. Any suggestions?

Perhaps my firmware is not correctly properly? Bellow is what I have for E, can anyone tell me if this needs altering?
Its teacup.

#define E_STEP_PIN DIO19
#define E_DIR_PIN DIO18
//#define E_ENABLE_PIN
//#define E_INVERT_DIR
//#define E_INVERT_ENABLE

Dave,
What about extruder stepper settings ?
For instance, did you double check the steps/mm for E0 ?
Accelleration ?

Bye
Davide

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no toys here...sorry

thx 4 your reply,
In teacup (which is recommended for gen7 boards) #define STEPS_PER_M_E which is the same steps/mm for E0
I think as I don't have steps/mm in firmware. My point is I have not altered this value from stock and I believe it should 'work'
from stock. To be fair I have altered it but it did not work so its impossible to fine tune as the extruder is not working to get the value finetuned. The accelleration I have not even yet got into. Again I believe this should work from stock values, yet I am getting the vibrating, rocking back and forth, hammering phenomenon.
I am not certainly ruling out it being a software issue but I am favoring it being.
I seem to get a reading of around 0.65 for both coils but I could not take the reading off the pins I had to go under the board from the solder. This is the same for the other drivers which do work so I do not see that as the problem.

Wait a second.
From above thread, it seems that Pololu driver works in other sockets and stepper, too: both should be alive and kicking.

Therefore either the motherboard pololu socket/motor connector are defective OR the software setting are just wrong.
Try to set the accelleration to half current value. See if hammering noise changes.

Funny enough, I have same problems now on my Megatronics board. Works with Marlin, but I have same probblems with Repetier firmware (extruder stepper humming, heating, not going anywhere...).

Bye
Davide

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==============================
no toys here...sorry

Hello,
you can give repetier a try on GEN7. Works quite fine. There is also a nice parameter to try in repetier named #define STEPPER_HIGH_DELAY 0.
#define STEPPER_HIGH_DELAY 1 might help. I tested some StepSticks and original Pololu and some did not work with teacup and GEN7

I tested all my drivers now with an arduino and looks like the timing make a difference

cu

Michael

Hi Michael,

I have been trying to get repetier to upload for a while without luck it gives me error compiling. Here is the text from console.

In file included from /Configuration.h:36,
from Commands.cpp:22:
/pins.h:587:6: error: #error Oops! Make sure you have 'Gen7' selected from the 'Tools -> Boards' menu.

I have selected my board and port in the arduino program so the problem must be with files not being correct.

In configuration.h there is only option shown bellow for gen7? I need gen7 1.4.1 so not sure if I can use this firmware?
What version gen7 board do you have?

Gen7 1.1 until 1.3.x = 7

There is a readme in the boards file which does not include my CPU (1284P, 20 MHz) so I guess I will stick with the board file from teacup folder.

The readme says to copy arduino.h but does not say where to copy the file to I presume I leave the file in the 'cores' folder shown in the bellow.

/hardware/Gen7/cores/arduino
Make sure to copy the Arduino.h which is needed to compile on Arduino 1.0.
Replace the original boards.txt with the boards.txt so uploading files works.

Hello Dave,
give the 0.81 a try and select board 71. I am currentrly using 0.73 which you can fetch from GITHUB Also install Arduino 1.0.3 and make sure you copy the GEN7 directories to hardware as supplied here

Which version Gen7 board do you use ? The above applies for 1.4.x and 1.5

For the version you've got it might be neccessary to change in the pins.h the allowed processors and there was also an issue with the FAN Pin definition. So give 0.73 a try or if you can't fetch that tag from Github try 0.81.

cu

Michael

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2013 05:31AM by mcp.

Quote

/pins.h:587:6: error: #error Oops! Make sure you have 'Gen7' selected from the 'Tools -> Boards' menu.

Older versions of Repetier don't know the ATmega1284P, yet. You can simply delete this line.

Is it possible you try to move the extruder too fast?

---

Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

mcp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hello Dave,

>
> For the version you've got it might be neccessary
> to change in the pins.h the allowed processors and
> there was also an issue with the FAN Pin
> definition. So give 0.73 a try or if you can't
> fetch that tag from Github try 0.81.
>
> cu
>
> Michael

thx 4 the info
I can only find the .81 version on github. I tried with arduino 1.3 and have same error.
I can't see how it can work when the boards file does not contain a 1284P. Am I right to copy the teacup boards file (which does contain the 1284P) into the boards file for repetier?
I am scared to try and change the pins indervidually as I would probably mess up the code.

Traumflug Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> /pins.h:587:6: error: #error Oops! Make sure you
> have 'Gen7' selected from the 'Tools -> Boards'
> menu.
>
> Older versions of Repetier don't know the
> ATmega1284P, yet. You can simply delete this
> line.
>
> Is it possible you try to move the extruder too
> fast?

I don't understand which part to delete from pins.h file? Should I have to edit the pins.h file to work?
This bit bellow does seem like it could need to be edited before using?
#if !defined(__AVR_ATmega644P__) && !defined(__AVR_ATmega644__) && !defined(__AVR_ATmega1284P__)

Regarding the speed of extrution I have tried altering STEPS_PER_M_E and acceleration but neither helped.
Also if I plug other steppers onto the bad driver they don't work either.

I would try with marlin uploaded but I have a problem uploading it also.

Hello,
did you select the board also in the arduino IDE ?
Because in the line you listed the 1284p is in.
You need to select the GEn7 in the config.h _and_ in the IDE ;-) (Tools->Board must be GEN7 with ATmega1284P must be selected.

cu

Michael

I have my board selected in arduino IDE yes. I am thinking the problem may lie with the fact I have changed the boards file which originally came with repetier and replaced it as I expressed in my last message. Do you have the 1284P processor also?
Have you altered board file yourself or just left it?

thx dave

Hello,
I just used the IDE extensions that came from the reprap-wiki for the Arduino IDE. You just need to copy the content into the Arduino IDE and then you can select the board within the IDE.

I have 2 working GEN7 with the Atmega1284 as I will extend on SD-Card and LCD.

cu

Michael