Hi Everyone,

Just got around to replacing the C2 caps on the stepper motor controller boards for a mate, and now im testing all of the electronics.

Seems like the X and Y Axis connections are working. Im not seeing anything on the Z axis. When I power the motherboard up, the X and Y stepper motor controllers appear to be in an idle state (one green and red led on for each board), but on the Z axis, I get a dim flash of a red LED for about half a second, then nothing.

Ive checked the ribbon cables and the stepper motors and boards, and they all seem fine. My mate had the bootloader flashed and the motherboard sits there with the debug LED flashing at 1Hz.

I am about to test the motherboard with the scope now and see if I can come up with anything.

Any help would be great!

Liam

I just checked the levels on the I/0 ports of the 644.

On A7 and D19 (pin 5 of the Y and X stepper sockets respectively) I am seeing 0V but on A2 (pin 5 of the Z stepper socket) I am seeing 5V. Im not sure if this is the normal state for this pin, but it does not seem logical due to the state of A7 and D19.

Regards,


Liam

In firmware maybe Z motor is disabled when not actually stepping, e.g. when it is not used. This is done by altering the enable line in the other state (some drivers work either way, low/high might be either enabled or disabled, see stepper chip datasheet). Just make a Z move, from software, see enable state change, Z out leds light up, move, then shuts down. If no pc software connection yet, check firmware if Z is disabled when not in use. So maybe its just nothing wrong - hopefully.