Hi,
I am building my own reprap Prusa I3. I recently caused a short on my ramps 1.4. It fried my aruidno, so I replaced it. The problem is that my stepper drivers are still putting out a really muddy stepper signal (see picture). I do not know if it is the ramps or the stepper drivers or both. I have uploaded some testing code to the arduino, and I know that it is working. Any help will be much appreciated. Thank You.

Did you install the jumpers under each board?

- Paul

I bought a pre-assembled ramps 1.4 and the standard polulu stick drivers. What do you mean jumpers?

3 male headers under the drivers, they are used to set microstepping for the motors. All 3 jumped will set 16x microstepping with A4988 drivers and 32x with DRV8825 drivers.

Are you looking at signal with motor on and have you tuned the current to the motor?

Under each driver board it has a spot for 3 jumpers to be installed.
Rather than trying to tell you where these are I will include a picture here for you.



- Paul

Thanks so much for the help. I have installed the jumpers. I also replaced the ramps 1.4. I still am getting the dirty signal. It wont even move the motor at all or respond to any pot changes. Thank you guys again for all the help, im sure you guys can understand how frustrating it can be when youve built an entire machine and one thing is keeping you back from your prints.

Did you wire the motors correctly? It's also best to calculate the voltage reference, not just turn the pot about...

Yes, I also hooked an oscope to the motor output on the board. Instead of the stepper function, it read the signal that I attached earlier.

Check your power supply and make sure it's okay.

Have you tried disconnecting the stepper motor and checking the signal with no motor attached?
The signal looks like it is being clipped for some reason.

It almost looks like the motors are trying to draw too much current or something like that.
Does the signal look the same on all the other axis's or is this one axis only?


If it is just one try moving the boards around to see if you have the same issue with another board in that slot.
If it turns out to be one of the boards that should be an easy fix.

- Paul

Do your stepper drivers have heatsinks? I fried 2 of my steppers when the heatsinks got moved (fat fingersand not watching what I was doing) and shorted out the pins down one side. Worth a look.

Thanks for all the input guys, I checked the power supply and it is working. I also bought a new ramps 1.4 and arduino. The stepper driver is also new.

It was on all axis without the heat sinks attached or motors.

I believe that it is a ramps 1.4 issues.

Dose anyone know how to test an ramps 1.4? I have uploaded code to the ramps.

Ok I tested the ramps and I found out the ramps works. I plugged the ramps onto the arduino. I then uploaded some test firmware and used a oscope to read out the step and dir pins relative to ground and they gave me a step function and constant output, respectively. So that is how I know that the arduino, and ramps works. Now I check my drivers, and this is what I read out relative to ground on the 1b pin. The Oscope Output on ramps 1.4 coil 1a). I also have a picture of my setup.]Set Up

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2014 02:28PM by gunnd14.

What is the step per unit in your code. I have mine setup like this in the Marlin firmware.

#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT {78,78,2560,100}
#define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE {3000, 3000, 150, 140}
#define DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION {9000,9000,100,500}
#define DEFAULT_ACCELERATION 3000
#define DEFAULT_RETRACT_ACCELERATION 3000

If these are not correct you may be trying to drive the motor too fast which will cause it to just buzz in most cases. What is happening when you connect the motor. Does it move correctly? Have you tried it?

- Paul

+Hello All, boy am i in need of help im at the ready to give up stage, i converted my ANET A8 printer to use ramps 1.4 boards but have come up with a few problems
first Im using win 10 with Repetier and Pronterface, with repetier the printer is dead it will connect but thats all with pronterface the XYZ move in the right direction but only one way
extruder will heat to correct temp but the bed is dead im waiting for a Mosfet drriver for the bed and am wondering if my 20 amp power is too small for the bed plus powering the steppers
as of right now im ready to put the printer on CRAIGS list but it would be nice to get it working. If anyone has any ideas please let me know.
Thanks John

Axis not moving in left direction is nearly always endstops

test your endstops with M119


the bed refusing to heat up is often the bed thermistor not working or not configured. Does pronterface show a bed temperature?

20A power supply should be fine. Most 200x200mm beds are 11amp and 5amp for everything else.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2019 12:45AM by Dust.

I encourage you to keep moving ahead.

Fix 1 thing at a time ! Dont get overwhelmed with multiple issues.

I too am going to replace the anet crap board with a slightly less crappy ramps14 setup on my Anet A2.
This will I think let me move to tmc2130s for quieter operation. anet boards are dang loud.

But I learned ramps with my SmartRapMini2 builds.

Quote
gunnd14
Hi,
I am building my own reprap Prusa I3. I recently caused a short on my ramps 1.4. It fried my aruidno, so I replaced it. The problem is that my stepper drivers are still putting out a really muddy stepper signal (see picture). I do not know if it is the ramps or the stepper drivers or both. I have uploaded some testing code to the arduino, and I know that it is working. Any help will be much appreciated. Thank You.

You can put the waveform problem to bed. When you are connected to motors your output is going to look stonky. You have inductance, capacitance and resistance all working together to look terrible. You won't see clean squarewaves, you will ramps and domes and dips and spikes. Look elsewhere.
Here are my recommendations:
* Check your current settings on your stepsticks, if the current is too low, you will get intermittent stepping.
* Check your jumpers and make sure that they agree with the steps in your configuration files. Most default to 16x microstepping.
* Check your wiring. There is no guarantee that the RAMPS 1.4 stepper wire order is the same as the original board that came with your printer. They will buzz and not move if the wire order is wrong.
* Check to make sure your power supply isn't "browning" out. You should be getting at least 12V with just stepper motors moving.

The above are the common issues, if all of these check out, then one of your (our) assumptions is wrong and you'll need to start at step zero and ohm out your wires everywhere.

have fun,
DLC

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Kits: Folgertech Kossel 2020 upgraded E3Dv6, Anet A8 upgraded E3Dv6, Tevo Tarantula enhanced parts and dual-head, TronXY X5SA Pro(E3DHemera).
Scratch: Large bed Cartesian, exchangeable heads, Linear slide Delta, Maker-Beam XL Micro Delta, 220x220CoreXY.