Extruder 2.2 stepper not turning on

Hello everyone,

I have got the Generation 3 electronics, ie V1.2 motherboard, V2.2 Extruder board, and 3 V2.3 stepper drivers.

Using the latest released RepRap firmware in both boards. and also using the latest host software (August last year).

Everything works except the extruder stepper. I know the COMS are working because I can turn the heater on and off. I can also read the heater temperature too. I have tested the hardware by loading some test firmware and this will run the extruder stepper fine.

Any ideas why everything works except the extruder stepper? The hardware all appears to be fine.

Thanks in advance.

Did you run the SDA and SCL lines from the motherboard to the extruder? It's a bit of a messy hack, but it keeps the stepper timing all on one CPU. Watch out for noise on those lines though!

Wade

I do have those additional wires attached for SDA and SCL of the I2C bus connecting the mother board to the extruder board.

Still does not work.

I may have made a mistake when I put those wires on.
They were going from the motherboard I2C to the extruder board I2C, they should've gone to the D9 and D10 inputs on the extruder board.
Will check this out soon.

Wade Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Did you run the SDA and SCL lines from the
> motherboard to the extruder? It's a bit of a
> messy hack, but it keeps the stepper timing all on
> one CPU. Watch out for noise on those lines
> though!
>
> Wade

Funny thing happened today, between what you and NopHead said. I was at work looking at my desktop picture (a few seconds at a time), when I realized that I had put the two wires from the motherboard (SDA and SCL for I2C) to the SDA and SCL of the I2C bus on the extruder board, instead of wiring them onto D9 and D10. Doh! I feel like an idiot several times over.

That means that no I2C is possible on the motherboard as the lines are direct toggle pins

I now have the lights blinking away on one h-bridge, the other h-bridge doesn't seem to be working.
And the host seems to turn on the extruder for a short period.

One problem solved two more to figure out.

Thanks Wade, NopHead

Just checking, but is the SDA/SCL -> D9/D10 still needed in the latest reprap firmware when using Gen3 electronics? I went looking for more details of it in the website, and was unable to locate anything anout it in the wiki, so I'm thinking it's been superseded by a firmware update that avoids it?

Buzz.

Still required as of the last official release. Can't say what the current version in svn does though.

Hay. I have the TechZone Main and Extruder boards. I have no idea what SDA/SCL D9/D10 are. Techzone= 0 docs. Could you please show me a picture of what you are talking about. I thing I would like to go with the idea of Seperate stepper controller for the Extrdr stepper but I don't have a handle on the pinouts or what they do. ( newby here) I am having no luck getting anything more than blinking out of my extrdr board. No stepping no temp read, no heat on/off. Just binks. So is there something that I could use as the Temp sense / Heat control and have the step run from the main board?


Thanks for commenting even if it is to tell me I am an ignorant fool.
BIll

I'm having similar problems here. I have a Gen3 electronics extruder board, the heater/temp controler work but not the stepper.
I had a look around to understand how it works. As far as I understand, there are two ICs (A3949SLBT) that control the stepper outputs (1A 1B 2A 2B ). Each IC controls 2 connectors (one for port 1, one for port 2) and are controled by the microcontroler from a pin (pins 9 and 10). So it seems like they have to be synchro in order to turn the stepper.
Here, when I use the Reprap console to test the board, I can only see two sets of LED lit, the one corresponding to port 2. This means that port 1 is not used and so the motor cannot turn. Actually, when I try to use it I can feel some vibrations on the shaft but nothing more.
So for me, the question is: how can I configure the reprap console to use both ports? Do I have to tweak the firmware?
I am not sure if the problems reported above are the same though.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/2010 07:17AM by Lionel.

@Erbanmap:
Thank you so much for asking your question: while looking at it, I actually found the problem on my machine! So here is the answer for you, jsut ask me again if you need more details.
The motherboards has 4 I2C ports in a corner, next to the X-AXIS port. They look like four black blocks of four pins each.
If you read the writings on the board, you can see that the pins correspond to Vcc (5V), ground, SDA anc SCL. This is what you are looking for.
There are four I2C ports, meaning that you can use up to four extruders. However, you need to connect the port the furthest from the X-AXIS (this was my mistake, I was not using the correct port). On my motherboard, this port is next to the writing "I2C".
For info, this port is used to drive the extruder directly, which bypasses the extruder microcontroller.
I hope that helps!

@Buzz:
I am using the latest build and I need to use this connector, so I suppose it is still needed I am not sure if there is a way to bypass it though, but I had a look to the different options in the reprap interface and in the build files, and I could not find anything.

The Techzone electronics, board layout etc are all documented on the wiki. (I know as I was looking at them again today).

[www.reprap.org]
[www.reprap.org]

(Worth looking at both of them until the information in them is merged)

And also this one

[www.reprap.org]


Cheers

David