Extruder and axis motor interchangability

Hey everyone,

I have been reading questions and gathering info from this site for a few months, and want to thank all of you for the incredible amount of help you have given me without ever having to ask a question.

However, I find myself in a little pickle that I can't figure out.

I have an i3Pro kit made by Makerfront. I have been printing with it for a few months, and everything was going rather smoothly. Yesterday I noticed that the extruder motor was a tad loose, so I tried to tighten the mounting screw down just a bit. I wound up over tightening it and stripping that hole out. Since there are only two mounting screws that hold the motor to the x carriage, I thought I would swap out the extruder motor for the x axis motor, since that one utilizes a different mounting scheme.

After I got it all back together, I find that both swapped motors do not move any more; they just vibrate loudly, like they are locked up. If I switch the connectors on the motors, the behave normally again (i.e., if I send an extrude command through pronterface, the x motor moves). So that validates that I didn't fry something when I was messing around with it.

I recall when I built the printer that the extruder and x,y,z, axis connectors going to the drivers were in a different order. The x,y, and z motors are pinned out as green, black, blue, red on the driver side and green blue black red on the motor side. The extruder is black, green, blue, red, and is the same on both ends.

The x axis motor and extruder motor that I swapped are the same model #: KS42STH40-1204A. They have another set of numbers on them that are different, but I'm guessing those are the batch number/serial numbers. Maybe it is relevant....

Any idea what the issue is? I have though about changing the pins physically to see if that corrects it, or perhaps changing the pin definitions in the config file. My hesitation in doing this is that I will have to change this every time Makerfront updates the firmware, which isn't a big deal; I'm more frustrated that I don't understand what's going on to control these motors that could be causing them to behave like this.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

The pinouts on the motors are different between the extruder and all the other axes.

Try this:
Swap the center pins on the black connectors for both motors. Should clear it up.

Another fix for stripped holes on the motor is using the other set of holes on the motor (rotate the motor 180), but this may require some cable lengthening for the extruder motor.

Let us know if we can help out any further!

support@makerfront.com

-Mike

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Making it better for Makers!
[makerfront.com]

Hey Mike,

Thanks for your reply.

I followed your directions, and it solved my problem (I did have to flip the black connector 180 degrees to correct the travel direction).

Now, being the engineer that I am, I cannot let sleeping dogs lie...

Why is the extruder motor pinned differently than the others? Is it internal to the stepper motor, or does it have to do with the pins on the board/firmware?

I quick google implies that your printer has a ramps. A standard ramps all stepper plugs are wired the same

All reprap controller boards I've seen so far all the stepper plugs are identical..

It must be the plugs on the steppers themselves that are wired different

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2015 05:15AM by Dust.