Deltabot motors not working-making horrible noise

Hi everyone,

First time building a printer! Building a deltabot, using a RAMPS 1.4 board. I have Marlin (for deltabots) loaded onto the board and and LCD attached which works perfectly. However any time I try to move any of the motors i get a very loud, continuous screeching noise and the motor sits there jittering and only moves if i push it, and when i do it jumps all over the place.

I've triple checked wiring, but i have not fiddled with the dial on top of the polulu driver. Could that be it?

Does anyone have any ideas what's causing this and how i can fix it?

Cheers, Luke

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2015 10:31AM by LukeTansell.

It sounds to me that you may be trying to move the motors much too fast. Assuming you have Marlin configured for 16x microstepping, do you have the jumpers on the RAMPS set for 16x microstepping too?

---

Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

How loud is the screeching, and does it stop when you stop moving the motors? If it's fairly quiet and keeps going, it's probably just the steppers trying to hold a microstep. That's normal. As for the not moving, check the current that the drivers put out -- not enough will give no torque, too much will make the motors vibrate and jerk (and get hot, you can check that).

Thanks for the reply dc42!

Where do I configure the 16x micro stepping in Marlin? I'm assuming it's just in the configuration.h sketch?
Also, where on the drivers do I set them for 16x micro stepping?

Cheers, Luke

Quote
LukeTansell
Thanks for the reply dc42!

Where do I configure the 16x micro stepping in Marlin? I'm assuming it's just in the configuration.h sketch?
Also, where on the drivers do I set them for 16x micro stepping?

Cheers, Luke

AFAIIK Marlin doesn't have a specific setting for microstepping, you just set the steps/mm figures to account for microstepping. So what you are actually setting is the number of microsteps per mm.

On the RAMPS, underneath each driver there are 3 pairs of jumper pins. To use 16x microstepping (which is usual) with standard A4982 or A4988 drivers, you need a jumper across each pair of pins, so 3 jumpers per driver. If you don't have any jumpers installed, AFAIK it default to full steps, which means that the motors will try to move 16 times too fast - which may well produce the screeching noise you report.

---

Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Okay, so what's the advantages and disadvantages of microstepping? As it's my first build i'll probably lean towards the easier solution. So if i was to go for normal stepping for the moment, what values would i need to change? I have 1.8 degree stepping motors if that helps.

Cheers, Luke

Without microstepping, your printer will vibrate a lot and have poor resolution. So you really do need to use microstepping.

Does your RAMPS board have the jumpers fitted underneath the driver modules?

---

Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Okay, i'll go for microstepping then! When i pulled one of my Polulu divers off, there's 6 pins underneath it.
How do i do anything with them, because the drivers are pretty much flush on top of them. I'm suprrised that none of this has come up before will all the instruction manuals and google searches i've done

Luke

**Correction**

I'll revert back to microstepping, and chuck the jumpers in. I didn't realise that the little black things that came with my RAMPS 1.4 were the 'jumpers'

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2015 10:32PM by LukeTansell.

Wooo!!! They're working!! Thanks so much for your help!

Although now my endstops aren't working... before when the motors were making horrible noises, they worked.
Now if i home the motors and activate the endstops, they keep going. The wiring isn't the issue because I touched the two connections (I have mechanical endstops) together and still nothing

M119 is your friend for troubleshooting endstops.....

What is M119? Sounds like an easter egg in a Pixar movie haha (A113)

If it gets my endstops working, i want to know how i can do it!

Luke

Quote
LukeTansell
What is M119? Sounds like an easter egg in a Pixar movie haha (A113)

If it gets my endstops working, i want to know how i can do it!

Luke

M119 in Pronterface / Whatever host you're talking to will ask your arduino to report back what it sees the endstops as doing.
In the configuraction.h there are settings for ENDSTOP_INVERTING True/False, which is where you tell the firmware whether your endstops are normally open (NO) or Normally closed (NC)

Do your mechanical endstops have the 4 pin connector? If so, be VERY careful wiring them; there's a thread on here with a number of fried boards as a result of these endstops having different wiring.

Edit; There are a few incorrect diagrams in the thread; read the entire thread before connecting/changing anything!

Here: [forums.reprap.org]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2015 07:43AM by KealanOCarroll.

Okay, to be honest, i haven't successfully got it talking to any host software yet, i've tried repetier, and pronterface but neither of them connect. As for my endstops, they only have 2 pins so just the standard open/close circuit.

When i press home, the motors, move and when i hit the endstop by hand (Or touch the pins together on the board) They don't stop. Doesn't this cancel out the NO and NC rules? Because if it was NC then wouldn't the motors just not start in the first place? And if it was NO then they'd move, and just stop when they get hit like normal. This is really confusing me...

Do you have your motherboard defined correctly?

DEFINE_MOTHERBOARD 33; in Config.h if I remember correctly.
Also bake sure you BAUDRATE is set to the same as that in the host, or they won't connect.
Have you uploaded the firmware onto the board okay? If so, make sure your host is using the same port ( COM7, COM8, etc) as the Arduino IDE is using to put the firmware on

I defined it as the Ramps 1.3/1.4 Extruder, Fan, Bed which is '#define BOARD_RAMPS_13_EFB'. As i have a single extruder, it's what i went with. Thoughts?

I set the baud rate the same, but i write and upload my code from my PC, then try to run it from my Surface Tablet. Would swapping between machines be affecting it?