firmware problems

I've finished the physical construction of my mendel; however, the firmware is giving me trouble.

I'm using a techzone motherboard, a techzone extruder controller w/ stepper driven extruder and the thermocouple option, all four stepper motors are from makerbot as are the four stepper motor drivers and the three opto-endstops. My power supply is a standard desktop power supply.

I have no problem uploading the firmware to the boards. I've tested the motherboard and stepper boards and opto-endstops using the "Star Wars" testing program, and all checks out OK.

This is where the problem starts.

I loaded firmware recommended by techzone for use with their thermocoupler board (I think it's based on reprap-mendel-20100702 firmware.). I started the reprap host of the same release. I'm not totally sure about the comms data.

portion of comms data:
which are not in your preferences file. [0.029s/29ms]
DEBUG: GCode opening port /dev/ttyUSB0 [0.363s/334ms]
Experimental: JNI_OnLoad called.
Stable Library
=========================================
Native lib Version = RXTX-2.1-7
Java lib Version = RXTX-2.1-7
DEBUG: Attempting to initialize Arduino/Sanguino [0.485s/122ms]
Java 3D WARNING : reported GLX version = 1.2
GLX version 1.3 or higher is required
The reported version number may be incorrect. There is a known
ATI driver bug in glXQueryVersion that incorrectly reports the GLX
version as 1.2 when it really is 1.3, so Java 3D will attempt to
run anyway.
comms: G-code: N0 T0 *26 dequeued and sent [7.102s/6617ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged [7.109s/7ms]
comms: G-code: N1 M113 *1 dequeued and sent [7.121s/12ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged with message: ok intercom::waitError() [7.142s/21ms]
comms: G-code: N2 M105 *5 dequeued and sent [7.144s/2ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged with message: ok T:0 B:0 intercom::waitError() [7.176s/32ms]
comms: G-code: N3 G1 F300.0 *64 dequeued and sent [101.116s/93940ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged [101.129s/13ms]
comms: G-code: N4 G1 X10.0 *107 dequeued and sent [101.133s/4ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged [101.145s/12ms]
comms: G-code: N5 M114 *2 dequeued and sent [102.393s/1248ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged with message: ok C: X:10.00 Y:0.00 Z:0.00 E:0.00 [103.163s/770ms]

The stepper drivers lit up in an abnormal way. All four of the X and Y axis's LEDs light up very faintly when the pot is turned counterclockwise, when turned the opposite way the the LED A and C become very bright while LED B and D turn off. While rotating the pot there is an in between point where an audible frequency can be heard emanating from the stepper motors connected to the particular board. As far as the z axis is concerned only the PWR LED is on and the other four do not respond to the pot in any way.

I also tried using the other more recent firmware/host releases. I get the same effect with the hardware, but the comms data is slightly different.

Thank you for any assistance,

It looks like your communicating fine with the motherboard. It accepted the M105 command to read the temperature and it returned both 0 for the tip and motherboard. This could happen if the RS485 lines are not connected or if the extruder was busy at the time of the temperature request.

It also accepted the command to move the x axis: G1 X10.0. As far as the motherboard is concerned, your motor moved. Have you doubled checked to make sure that you have connected the wires to your stepper motors correctly.

Also, note that there's a bug in the Techzone firmware that I found in the last couple of weeks. I don't know if it has been corrected. If the temperature goes above 255, then it thinks the temp is zero and it turns the heat on max. This happens because they are assigning the temperature reading to a byte.

Thanks for the help.
I put a little more work in on it tonight, but I'm still having problems with the motors not turning. I ran the "Star Wars" stepper motor test and all the steppers worked during the "Star Wars" test; however, after I loaded the tech zone thermocoupler firmware the motors stopped working. I have the same problem as before. The stepper drivers light up in an abnormal way. All four of the X and Y LEDs light up very faintly when the pot is turned counterclockwise, when turned the opposite way the the LED A and C become very bright while LED B and D turn off. While rotating the pot there is an in between point where an audible frequency can be heard emanating from the stepper motors connected to the particular board. As far as the z axis is concerned only the PWR LED is on and the other four do not respond to the pot in any way


DEBUG: The distribution preferences file contains:
Extruder1_MiddleStart
Extruder2_MiddleStart
Extruder3_MiddleStart
Extruder0_MiddleStart
which are not in your preferences file. [0.000s/-1301461521189ms]
DEBUG: GCode opening port /dev/ttyUSB0 [0.326s/326ms]
Experimental: JNI_OnLoad called.
Stable Library
=========================================
Native lib Version = RXTX-2.1-7
Java lib Version = RXTX-2.1-7
RXTX Warning: Removing stale lock file. /var/lock/LCK..ttyUSB0
DEBUG: Attempting to initialize Arduino/Sanguino [0.454s/128ms]
Java 3D WARNING : reported GLX version = 1.2
GLX version 1.3 or higher is required
The reported version number may be incorrect. There is a known
ATI driver bug in glXQueryVersion that incorrectly reports the GLX
version as 1.2 when it really is 1.3, so Java 3D will attempt to
run anyway.
comms: G-code: N0 T0 *26 dequeued and sent [7.508s/7054ms]
comms: Response: ok [7.526s/18ms]
comms: G-code: N1 M113 *1 dequeued and sent [7.527s/1ms]
comms: Response: ok [7.537s/10ms]
comms: G-code: N2 M105 *5 dequeued and sent [7.539s/2ms]
comms: Response: ok T:2 B:-39 [7.556s/17ms]
comms: G-code: N3 M105 *4 dequeued and sent [9.062s/1506ms]
comms: Response: ok T:2 B:-39 [9.079s/17ms]
comms: G-code: N4 M105 *3 dequeued and sent [10.585s/1506ms]
comms: Response: ok T:2 B:-39 [10.602s/17ms]
comms: G-code: N5 M105 *2 dequeued and sent [10.621s/19ms]
comms: Response: ok T:2 B:-39 [10.635s/14ms]
comms: G-code: N6 G1 F1500.0 *114 dequeued and sent [11.735s/1100ms]
comms: Response: ok [11.747s/12ms]
comms: G-code: N7 G1 X0.1 F1539.5 *43 dequeued and sent [11.750s/3ms]
comms: Response: ok [11.765s/15ms]
comms: G-code: N8 M105 *15 dequeued and sent [12.139s/374ms]
comms: Response: ok T:2 B:-39 [12.156s/17ms]
comms: G-code: N9 M105 *14 dequeued and sent [13.659s/1503ms]
comms: Response: ok T:2 B:-39 [13.677s/18ms]
comms: G-code: N10 M114 *54 dequeued and sent [15.036s/1359ms]
comms: Response: ok C: X:0.10 Y:0.00 Z:0.00 E:0.00 [15.062s/26ms]
comms: G-code: N11 M105 *55 dequeued and sent [16.678s/1616ms]
comms: Response: ok T:2 B:-39 [16.697s/19ms]

The techzone thermocouple firmware is loaded to the extruder controller and should have no effect on the x, y, z steppers. I don't think they made any changes to the motherboard firmware but I never checked it myself. Why don't you try the firmware that I uploaded based on reprap host 20110719? Here's the link. I added the code for the thermocouple A-D and also fixed the temperature bug.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2011 01:58AM by brnrd.

After having tried your advice, the steppers are still not moving. I guess I should have asked earlier, is the Ubuntu netbook edition compatible with the host software?
For this test, I only had the techzone mother board connected to the three stepper controllers.

I've posted some videos of the problem (as of posting videos are still in processing by youtube). I copied the comms data from the video.
Stepper test:
[www.youtube.com]


Reprap firmware and host:
[www.youtube.com]


Partial comms data:
comms: G-code: N108 G1 F5.0 *76 dequeued and sent [129.199s/743ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged [129.211s/12ms]
comms: G-code: N109 G1 Z0.4125 F50.0 *27 dequeued and sent [129.215s/4ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged [129.230s/15ms]
comms: G-code: N110 G1 Z9.5875 *106 dequeued and sent [129.232s/2ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged [129.246s/14ms]
comms: G-code: N111 G1 Z10.0 F5.0 *33 dequeued and sent [129.248s/2ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged [129.264s/16ms]
comms: G-code: N112 M105 *5 dequeued and sent [129.958s/694ms]
comms: G-code: N112 M114 *5 dequeued and sent [132.164s/2206ms]
comms: GCodeWriter.waitForOK() - temperature reading: T:0 B:0 [145.705s/13541ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged with message: ok EB [145.708s/3ms]
comms: G-code: N113 M105 *4 dequeued and sent [145.710s/2ms]
comms: GCodeWriter.waitForOK() dud response: lineNr+1 [145.735s/25ms]
ERROR: Requested to resend line 113 [145.741s/6ms]
ERROR: Resent: N113 M105 *4 [145.742s/1ms]
ERROR: GCodeWriter.waitForOK(): Serial Error: LineNr is not the lastok [145.743s/1ms]
comms: GCodeWriter.waitForOK() dud response: :0 B:0 [145.761s/18ms]
comms: GCodeWriter.waitForOK() dud response: T [145.761s/0ms]
comms: GCode acknowledged with message: ok EB [145.765s/4ms]

At this point the software was frozen. I had to ctrl C to get rid of it.

I don't know about the Ubuntu but on the Mac Leopard, I've only been able to make the 20100719 64-bit host and firmware work after trying all the other stable releases including the latest release in Feb. Perhaps others can suggest working combinations to you. If not, download all the stable releases and try them one by one. It's easy to edit the configuration.h file and upload the firmware anyway. Don't worry about the extruder yet. Just work on getting the stepper motors to respond.

You don't need to fiddle around with your stepper controller trimpots to make the sw work. The sw doesn't even look there. There's no feedback from the stepper controller to the motherboard. The endstops are actually just being routed directly from the stepper controllers to the motherboard. Just start with your trimpots set to about 1/4 turn from minimum. If the sw works, it will try to move the steppers and if your pots are too low, you can adjust it clockwise until your steppers move.