Steppers stil not stepping

Once again I have a problem. I am using the Live CD 0.6 and have gotten the program to connect to the arduino. Using the single arduino generation two electronics, I can use the software program to control my extruder motor. It still will not turn my stepper motors. They will turn when running and extruder excersiser. The dir and step pins are wired to the arduino, ground to the arduino ground, and sync of my x and y (both slaves) are both wired into the z sync (z is the master board). I think the problem may be with some of the preferences in the software, so I am posting this in the software forum as well. Thank You for your help.

-Jajo

What speed do you have your steppers set to run at? Do they make any noise when you attempt to move them? Can you even open the Stepper Exerciser? More info please.

Demented

disconnect the endstops for a quick test (one hand on the power OFF button of the PSU!)
Do they move now?

'sid

All of my motors are set to speed 236. They make no noise when I attempt to move them by clicking the "home" button. I am able to open the stepper exerciser. Removing the endstops does not make it work.

Hmm...not sounding like a preferences problem to me. Have you changed any of the prefs? If so, which ones? If you are booting into the liveCD each time, then the prefs given should mostly work...we never had any problem with that on ours.

Go back and re-check your wiring from the Stepper Driver boards to the steppers. Are they connected in the right sequence (Blue, Green, Brown, White)? Have you shorted the right wires together on the steppers (Orange/Black and Yellow/Red)?

Test power to the Stepper Driver boards. Are you getting 12v? Is everything grounded? Are the lights on your boards coming on when you turn on power? If only some of the lights are coming on, which ones?

It kinda sounds like maybe you blew the L297/L298 chip(s). Do they look singed? Do they get really hot when you try and move them? If your LEDs by the stepper header plug in on your Stepper Driver board don't light up you may have fried your L297 chip.

Turn everything on, open your stepper exerciser, press home. Now take your multimeter and check for signal from the arduino on the appropriate pins. Do you get anything? I imagine you do. If so, check for signal at your stepper motor connection--i.e. the lines directly into the steppers. If you don't get signal here and you did at the arduino, then the problem is on the board.

There is more but if you could answer these questions first it would help me.

Demented

The only preference that I change is the port. I change it to /dev/tty/USB0. The steppers is connected correctly, and I have shorted the correct wires together. I could not have blown out my L298/L297 chip. I have gotten the steppers to turn running an excersicer program on the arduino. How do I check the signal from the arduino? (what do I connect the other lead to) The only light that goes on is the power light. The lights next to the stepper connection do not light. Also, I have gotten rid of my sync wires and have made all of the controllers masters.

The bi-color LEDs next to the stepper wires on the stepper driver boards should light up as soon as you plug power into the board. Mine come up all green, but at the very least you should have at least one LED green or red, depending on what position the stepper driver board is in (and you have the board set to half stepping). If none of the LEDs are lit, your steppers are not getting power, or something is wrong with your LED wiring.

Print out the stepper board schematic, and check your 12V and 5V and ground connections. I think the green power light runs of the 12V side; check the 5V side too. I managed to smoke the 5v supply line at one point by shorting something on my circuit board, and I had to rebuild the trace with a bit of wire soldered in place.

Make sure the connectors have the correct polarity. Post some photos of the board, maybe we can spot something wrong. Try to get those stepper output LED's lit up first though; if you've not getting LEDs lit you won't get any stepper movement.

Wade

I have not been able to check for power with my multimeter yet, but I have some pictures uploaded at [ttuesday.wikicomplete.info]. They may not help at all, but it is worth a try. I will check using a multimeter tomorrow.

Hey, not bad, but the pics are a little fuzzy; one of the things I wanted to check was the connector orientation, but it's hard to tell from those photos. Canon SD500's will focus down to 1.6 ft, but no closer, so to get good closeup shots, move the camera further away (at least 1.6 ft away) and zoom in the lens if you have to. If you could get the whole board in one shot, that would help; there's plenty of resolution. Also, using a flash or a tripod will help sharpen things up at really slow shutter speeds, or just put the board underneath a bright light. I use a Canon too, and I really like em.

Let me know what you find out with the multimeter. BTW, you can attach pictures to forum posts; those were a little tricky to find on that site.

Wade

I tried my stepper exerciser again and I found it had stopped working. I fixed it eventually, and discovered why it would not work. My stepper driver will only work when it is the only one of the three, x y and z, that is plugged into my power source. Is this a problem with my power supply? I can keep the DC Motor Driver and/or PWM Driver connected to power, but not more than one stepper driver. Also, I think a chip, L298 or L297, is burnt out on my Z-axis board. Is there anything I can do with a multimeter to see if they are working?

-Jajo

What is your power supply rated for? Check the maximum amps and power ratings, and then compare that to what your boards are drawing. Measure the current draw for each board with your multimeter, and add them up. Also, you could try turning the current down to the minimum on each stepper board, and see if you can run more than one of them at a time like that.

Some people have had issues with noise from the stepper drivers causing their power supply to reset, search around the forums and see how they fixed it.

Wade

If it is a standard PC PSU have you got any load on the 5V rail? IIRC the recommendation is a 10R 5W power resistor.

Cheap PC PSUs only have a single regulator. If you put all the load on 12V it cannot get to the right voltage without the 5V rail being too high. Usually this manifests as the 12V rail being very low unless you load the 5V rail. I can imagine it may shut down though.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

I have two power supplies now, and all of my boards have power. Booting up Kubuntu, I cannot connect to my arduino. The dmesg |grep tty command brings up:

dmesg |grep tty
[ 47.607202] console [tty0] enabled
[ 49.802127] serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
[ 49.802937] 00:0a: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
[14292.979550] usb 2-2: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[14295.059256] ftdi_sio ttyUSB0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[14296.752677] usb 2-2: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[14494.025287] usb 2-2: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB1
[14507.355413] ftdi_sio ttyUSB0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[17060.374227] ftdi_sio ttyUSB1: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now disconnected from ttyUSB1
[17062.055245] usb 2-2: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0

Do you know what is wrong? And is there any live cd that will work on a computer designed for windows vista? Both my 0.7 and 0.6 will not boot on it.