[Fixed]Stepper driver just died. Was it a fluke, or should I be worried?

The short story is that I'm an amateur building my first 3D printer (ORD Bot for those interested), and after plugging in the extruder motor for the first time, my RAMPS seemed to have died. I couldn't get any lights with USB or 12v, even after unplugging every motor/endstop(oops, apparently not)/thermistor cable. However, I finally unplugged the E0 extruder driver and the board is back online.

The board came with 5 stepper drivers (I've already tested X,Y,Z, they work great), but I'm hesitant to just plug the E1 back into E0 and try again. Obviously something happened when I plugged the motor in, and turned on the board. A short in the motor couldn't have caused this, could it? Was it most likely a fault in the driver, and therefore a fluke?

While reading through old posts trying to figure out the problem, I saw someone mention that the potentiometers on the steppers should only turn a certain distance. Mine spin infinitely. Maybe that says something about their quality.

Should I just go ahead and use the other stepper driver, or should I get out my multimeter?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2012 02:14AM by Locus.

Actually, hold up. I misdiagnosed something, and I think the startup was actually caused by a mechanical endstop being wired incorrectly, which seems impossible, but is something I can reproduce. I must have forgotten to unplug the endstops during my testing, and then gotten a false solution when I unplugged EVERYTHING along with the stepper driver.

Just goes to show, always stick to very rigid scientific troubleshooting methods.

I'm still confused, but I think the problem is solved (or at least on hold) for now.


*edit* Yeah, everything checks out now. It was just failing to start up with a Normally Closed endstop switch bridging SIG and GND instead of VCC and GND.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2012 02:16AM by Locus.