Rostock Stepper Motor Problem - Help

New here guys and new to 3d printing. I'm having an issue with my y axis stepper motor. It seems to just vibrate, makes a loud nose, and then makes some sparatike movements while making the loud noise. That tower will not home. I have verifid that the endstop is working correctly. I swapped the stepper driver with one from one of the other towers that is working fine, the problem still exists. I swapped the stepper motor with one from another tower that is working fine, and the problem still exists. Whichver stepper motor that is hooked up to this tower does not hold like the other towers either.

Rostock with nema 17 motors, arduino mega 2650, Geetech ramps 1.4, Geetech pololu stepper drivers. Merlin Firmware and Pronterface.

Looking for direction. Thank you in advance.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2014 09:54PM by Delta9380.

Did you calibrate the current on your stepper drivers?

I did not, but a stepper driver from another motor, that was running that motor fine, it did the same thing. even when I changed the motor and driver from a working tower to the Y tower it still had the same problems. It leads me to believe there is something in the firmware or the RAMPS board that is creating the problem. I am no expert and am looking for insight to test the RAMPS board and firmware.

Ok, that was unclear to me. So if the wiring is not bad, then the motor may be.

[reprapandme.blogspot.com] - scroll to where is shows the stepper motor.

Quote
Delta9380
I did not, but a stepper driver from another motor, that was running that motor fine, it did the same thing. even when I changed the motor and driver from a working tower to the Y tower it still had the same problems. It leads me to believe there is something in the firmware or the RAMPS board that is creating the problem. I am no expert and am looking for insight to test the RAMPS board and firmware.

If it is making a lot of noise, then it could be that the current is set to high on the driver. Loud noise = high current.
I also have a stubborn motor that won't home correctly. It can be very annoying.

Thanks for the advise. I wondering if may be a problem with the RAMPS board or Arduino. The Y tower is the one I am having problems with. The X and Z work fine. I can switch the Y and X tower's motor and driver and still have the same problem. The motor and driver that works fine in the X tower will make the same sparatic movements and loud noises when installed in the Y tower. The Y tower motor and driver will work fine in the X tower. No changes were made to the pots on the driver chips.

To eliminate the chance of the belt hanging up and being cause of the problems on the Y tower, I removed the belt and unscrewed the motor from the tower. The same lound noises and sparatic movement happens no matter which motor and driver are plugged into the Y location of the RAMPS board.

for me when i did not install jumpers on my ramps all motor did same noise

did you check if there is damaged jumper under y stepper driver?

regards

All 3 jumpers are installed under all the drivers.

did you check if all jumper has metal inside?
sometime they come without (faulty)

i am not an expert but if you are sure its board problem and you can not ask for replacement
then i think it is possible to use second extruder as y (for you)

so we should ask experts how to adjust this in firmware

regards

On my $15 RAMPS, I had to resolder some of the driver pins on Y and Z. I had to first look at the schematic then trace each connection. Do you have multimeter?

I have the same issue in pronterface....but not in repetier. I keep switching back and forth. They seem to both react differently with the same g code?

If it is not your board, it is possible that it is a faulty stepper (not a complete loss). If all the steppers are from the same provider and have the same specifications they should all work pretty much with the same current. And changing the drivers should work if it is a faulty driver. However, just to be sure instead of changing the driver and the steppers back and forth, try reducing the current to the lowest and then increase it bit by bit on your faulty stepper.

It could also be the jumpers like LB-3D suggests. Mine were noisier when they were working at full steps compared to micro stepping.

Did you check you Marlin file "Configuration_adv.h" to make sure your software is using 1/16 steps?

// Microstep setting (Only functional when stepper driver microstep pins are connected to MCU.
#define MICROSTEP_MODES {16,16,16,16,16} // [1,2,4,8,16]
//#define MICROSTEP_MODES {8,8,8,8,8} // [1,2,4,8,16]

MICROSTEP_MODES only works with a few boards. RAMPS isn't one of them