No motor movement troubleshooting

Hi, I've got this irritating problem with my Prusa. All motors stopped responding. No axis movement. The whole set-up was working some 10 months ago, and when I got back to my printer with new electronics (the same Sanguinololu set-up) - completely no response. Even none of that "click" sound that the motors give you when you turn the power on. Not to mention that I've got completely nothing form them when I try to trigger a move via Pronterface.

My set-up is a Sanguinololu 1.3a with Atmega 644P (yeah, I know, but back in the beginning of 2012 this was top notch).

Could you help me with troubleshooting this thing? Because I seem to run out of tests (both hardware and software)... Somehow I suspect the Atmega or this - could this be the case while all other features work? The stepsticks seem to be healthy, beacause they give proper power readings. The power given by the power supply tested for 12V. The motors themselves also seem to be healthy, because I haven't changed a thing in their wiring since the last worked and they give back resistance when I try to move them by hand (or maybe they just have to be checked with a multimeter, but I don't know how to check them properly).

Thanks for your help! Damn, when my life became so incomoplete without the ability to melt some plastic with this weird thing

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@prosumerism_log

This may be a dumb question... but are you able to connect to the board with Pronterface or another piece of host software? If so, can you verify that the board is actually getting power, not just USB signal? i.e. can you heat up the hot end and/or bed? My guess is that you can connect to the board via USB but it isn't getting power for some reason.

@Pointedstick - not at all Yes, the connection with Pronterface runs fine, I am able to heat the bed and hotend, temp readings are ok.

I also verified the power given to the board with a multimeter (12V tested).

If that's the case,

Can you move the axis around by hand when powered up?
(If so, motors aren't getting power)

My next troubleshoot spot would then be the enable pins on the stepper drivers.

Put a Voltmeter on the VCC of the stepper drivers and make sure they are getting power,

Then check to see if Arduino Pins are mapped out correctly, and that the 'enable' is set correctly. (Sinking or Sourcing)

Hm, it looks like I can, so this is probably a power issue. Totally weird - brand new board and also tested with few others, stepsticks give out proper power readings. So what now - the enable pins? I'll trynthat tomorrow, thanks!

I'm back from testing the software alternatives for enable pin. Whether with value 1 or 0, motors don't respond (and I could still move them by hand).

Here are the pins.h for motors

#define X_STEP_PIN 15
#define X_DIR_PIN 21
#define X_MIN_PIN 18
#define X_MAX_PIN -2

#define Y_STEP_PIN 22
#define Y_DIR_PIN 23
#define Y_MIN_PIN 19
#define Y_MAX_PIN -1

#define Z_STEP_PIN 3
#define Z_DIR_PIN 2
#define Z_MIN_PIN 20
#define Z_MAX_PIN -1

#define E_STEP_PIN 1
#define E_DIR_PIN 0

#define LED_PIN -1

#define FAN_PIN -1

#define PS_ON_PIN -1
#define KILL_PIN -1

#define HEATER_0_PIN 13 // (extruder)

I've attached my pins.h file if you could take a look at it - it's default taken from the latest Marlin.

Any ideas what I could do now?

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@prosumerism_log

when you run pronterface do you get any errors it the echo window?

are you sure your baud rate connects at the correct baud?

do you have lights on your board indicating power to the steppers?

No errors in the echo.

I connect with 57600 baud. Higher bauds also tested.

It's a samguinololu 1.3a, so there's only one light that lits when usb connected or/and power supply connected (in my case both work correctly).


I also noticed a strange thing, maybe this is some trace. Both the atmega and the power stabilizer (the transistor next to the thermistors pins) tend to get quite hot when heating triggered (almost unbearable to touch). As far as I can remember this didn't occur when everything worked properly. I think they were cool when stepsticks were off the board, but I can recheck this unfortunately not ear earlier than this Saturday Is this relavant in the case?

Anyone any ideas, please?

Right now I'm considering buying new stepsticks, because despite proper voltage readings on my current ones, the motors don't get power. Would new stepsticks help? Or maybe there's something wrong with the motors?

After a short break I decided to go after my "gut feeling" and switched the sepsticks and the motors are working again.

The main breakpoint in troubleshooting this thing was to check if motors get enought power (sic!). Two ways to do this:
- try to move the motors manually while connected to host
- measure the power on the enable pin of the stepstick when sending command to move


Cheers!