one stepper no longer moving.

Hi all,

I'm working with a custom built delta using a RAMPS 1.4 board.
The printer has been working fine for about 18 months but I recently decided to upgrade the extruder.
While doing this I adjusted the voltage on the extruder stepper driver (change in stepper motor). The extruder works fine.

After doing this, one of the Y axis stepper motor stopped working.
Any time I try to issue a move command, it shudders and vibrates in place but does not rotate.

I've tried the following:
Confirmed that the vref voltage is correct is the same for all steppers (.8V).
Replaced the cable between the RAMPS and the affected stepper. --> NO CHANGE so cable should be good.
swapped the X and Y stepper wires around. --> problem follows the RAMPS output, so the stepper motor should be good.
Swapped the stepper drivers between X and Y axis --> problem follows RAMPS output not the stepper driver.

From the above, I therefore must have an issue with the RAMPS board rather than anything plugged into it?
Is there any other test I should do or anything else to check? If it is the RAMPS board, is it possible to reconfigure the board or the firmware to use the spare stepper driver socket to control the Y axis? (My printer only uses 4 stepper motors)

The only change I made in the firmware was the steps per mm setting for the extruder, but I did this in the EPROM rather then recompiling the firmware.
I'm using the repetier firmware if that makes any difference, but I'm pretty sure this must be a hardware problem.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Lapo

Quote

After doing this, one of the Y axis stepper motor stopped working.

That makes me curious...
A Delta printer with more than one Y-stepper?!

Regarding your problem: I wonder, what the eprom reads for y-steps now....

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2018 03:35AM by o_lampe.

My bad. I should have proofread the original post better. I only have one "Y" stepper.
The eprom step settings are unchanged for the movement steppers.

Any other thoughts? Thanks.

Is it possible to reconfigure the RAMPS to use the spare stepper controller socket for the Y axis?
How does one go about doing that?

"Is it possible to reconfigure the RAMPS to use the spare stepper controller socket for the Y axis? "

yes

load up your pins_RAMPS.h in a text editor (or ardunio ide)

find

#define Y_STEP_PIN 60
#define Y_DIR_PIN 61
#define Y_ENABLE_PIN 56

and

#define E1_STEP_PIN 36
#define E1_DIR_PIN 34
#define E1_ENABLE_PIN 30

swap the pin definitions over them save and re compile your firmware

if your using an advanced stepper driver with SPI you also need the CS_PIN swapped over

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/2018 01:26AM by Dust.

Thank you for the info.
I made the change and recompiled.
Tested the movement and the same problem persisted. Y-axis motor jittery and staying in place.

Tried going through all the same permutations as the previous testing:
Changed cable
Changed stepper controller
Swapped stepper motors between X and Y axis.
etc...

The problem persisted on Y-axis (configured on E1 socket on RAMPS).

Figured that the issue must not have been with the Y socket on the board so reconfigured and recompiled firmware.

Reconnected everything as it was originally so as to start troubleshooting from scratch but now its all working...

So: Happy that I can get back to printing, but now I'm confused as to what really went wrong.
The only thing I can think of is that it was either a software glitch caused by accidentally touching something while reconfiguring the E0 stepper voltage or perhaps a connection issue brought on by the same...

Anyway, thanks for the input. At least I've learned something about reconfiguring the RAMPS board.

Lapo