X axis motor not moving under RAMPS 1.4 test firmware

Hi everyone,

I am hooking up my motors and endstops to my RAMPS 1.4 board to test them out using the test firmware on the wiki, and I'm having issues with my X axis.

Plugging my motor into the X axis port causes my motor to not move at all. I then moved the motor and plugged it into the Y axis port, and it works fine.

I thought it might be a motor driver issue, so I swapped out the X and Y axis drivers, and still the X axis port doesn't work, but the Y axis one does, so not a driver problem.

I then thought maybe it was an endstop issues, so I swapped the X and Y axis endstops on the board and got the same results, still no movement on the X axis port.

I purchased this board pre-assembled, but I looked for any obvious issues with the soldering but it all seems ok.

Can anyone suggest any fixes or more steps I can take to troubleshoot this problem?

Thanks!

X motor swap works ... hmmm

so now try swap the driver stepstick ... burnt A4988 ... thats my guess

Switched the X stepstick to the Y position and the Y axis still moves and the X won't. Seems like the drivers are fine.

Also, I plugged in all of the motors and only the Y moves. The X and extruder motors don't do anything, and the Z motors make a humming noise but don't move.

o crap ... now Z is affected when it was not before?

Z was always this way. Initially I was just testing using X to make sure I didn't lose all motors in case something happened. Once X didn't work, I moved it to Y, so Z wasn't initially tested.

did u "tune" the stepsticks? current drive pot/VR?

I turned the pots all the way counter clockwise, then a quarter turn back clockwise. Is that what you mean?

hmmm yea, that would be the nominal start up method.

for me, i use my fingers to apply some force on the pulley, then adjust VR (without any mechanics loaded on the motors), so from there i will find out at which point is the least torque and the most torque, where torque starts to build up, then i try and find a point that is a "firm" torque. un-orthodox method, cos you need to know how much "strength" the stepper should give, so its kinda a feeley method for me lol :p

then after that i ran that over couple of minutes see if anything overheats w/o load.

if you know the motor parameters it will be even better, so you can double check what you felt in terms of torque and heat. and turn it down.

if i grip the pulley really well, i can still stop the pulley, and my motors are rated at 42Ncm @ 9VDC 0.85A.

i manage to get 2 sets of diff stepsticks and both have diff VR settings. so it might be a good idea to use a finger torque test, and have a understanding of how hot they run. according to most ppl here, motors going at 50degrees C is normal. i use a multimeter with a temp probe to check that.

if you can do a search on "nophead" 's articles on stepper motors, it will give you some eye opener on steppers as it did for me.

edit -- o small note on A4988s, the VR is hyper sensitive, very small movement results in large current limit shifts. if u are on A4983 using 0.2ohm sense, it is build for a larger VR sweep range.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2012 10:33AM by redreprap.

I really hope you weren't pluggin/unpluggin the motors or pololus while the board was powered up. If so, that's the problem, you've prob. blown the drivers. Not a big loss, $12 each, but fair warning, they're very delicate, and unpluggin while powered up is almost a guaranteed deal breaker.

I've been very careful not to touch anything while it's plugged in. I suspect it's not anything to do with blown drivers since swapping the drivers around still doesn't move anything but the Y axis.

hmmm intrigues me still ... i cant get my brains to think abt what could be a solver lol

Turns out the strange Z behavior was due to a crappy solder job on one of the pins on the Z motor driver. So I now have full motion in Y and Z, but nothing in X or extruder. I'm going to try shuffling the drivers around again and see if maybe they're bad after all. I will also test the 2 drivers that aren't working based on the troubleshooting instructions on this page. I'm hoping it is just a driver issue after all.

So I did some testing as per the RAMPS troubleshooting page linked above, and these are the results:

Setup:
Marlin firmware and Pronterface for control.

---

Step 1: Only connected hot end thermistor, Y motor driver and Y motor, then measured the following:
VMOT: 12V
VDD: 5V
EN: Started off at 5V, then once I told it to step, it switched to low and stayed there
DIR: Changed from 0V to 5V depending on direction
STEP: My multimeter showed this pin jump from 0V to 0.4V when I told the printer to step in Y. Not the best meter so it's probably not very accurate at short pulses like that.

Result: Motor moved as expected. Motor also stayed on (not moving, but holding).

---

Step 2: Power off everything, move the motor connector and driver over to X position, powered up and measured the following:
VMOT: 12V
VDD: 5V
EN: Started off at 5V, switched to low when I told it to step, then returned to 5V right away
DIR: Changed from 0V to 5V depending on direction
STEP: Same as above, 0V to 0.4V, but probably not an accurate value.

Result: No movement at all.

---

The only difference is seemingly that the EN pin acted differently in the 2 positions...

Enable for the X axis should be on pin D38 of your Arduino Mega. R16 is also involved.

FWIW: The schematic is here: [reprap.org]

Marlin config Q's (check in Configuration.h):
1. Are you sure you configured Marlin for the right motherboard setting? There's more than one RAMPS board config option (for the different versions of RAMPS). Should be 33 or 34 for a RAMPS 1.3/1.4 board. The difference between 33 and 34 is that 34 is for two extruders.
2. Check the X_ENABLE_ON and DISABLE_X settings are correct (and should be the same as the Y_ENABLE_ON and DISABLE_Y). They should be 0 and FALSE respectively.

Hope this helps.

Cefiar, I checked the Configuration.h file and I'm using the follow:

Motherboard: 33
X_ENABLE_ON = 0
DISABLE_X = FALSE

Which are all the same settings as I'm using for Y.

Can any one help my x motor goes left and right
When I try to move it left on the soft ware
???

From the suggestion of SeeMeCNC on the IRC channel, I measured the output to the motor pins in X with Marlin and jogging X in Pronterface and I see that all 4 pins are consistently at 12V. Doing the same measurement in Y with the same driver, I get a change from 12V to 0V and back to 12V for each movement.

SeeMeCNC suggested it's probably a bad RAMPS board. Any suggestions to the contrary would be appreciated, but I will contact the vendor and try to get a replacement.

hmmm stepper motor energizing voltages are not exactly DC ... they are kinda mini DC pulses ...

I have this same problem, but my x axis works fine, y axis does nothing, and z axis works some times, I'm going to try the test code and see with happens.

littlebigmachine Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have this same problem, but my x axis works
> fine, y axis does nothing, and z axis works some
> times, I'm going to try the test code and see with
> happens.


I've moved on to testing the stepper motor. I've wired up the boards in a test bench set up. But I still have newbie problems, because

I am not sure if the motor wiring is correct? On this video [www.youtube.com] the used order from left to right is red, blue, green, black, which is conform to the wiring plan of RAMPS 1.4 as described here [reprap.org] --> But the motor cable I got in my ultimate kit has the red and blue inversed. So Plugging the same motor to different slots X,Y,Z gives different results. It works if one plugs it to X Axis slot. Plugging the same motor to Y or Z slot makes the motor vibrates without turning. I am using the XBOX 360 power supply 16.5 A, so sufficient current for the motors must be there. See picture:



Then I re(inversed) the red and blue wires and this solved one problem. Now X and Z axis motors are working but not Y

I made a video. Any hints or pointers would be appreciated.

Blue motor: X
Red motor: Y
Yellow motor: Z
Green motor: Extruder 1

[youtu.be]

I think I had two problems at the same time, which is not good for a noob...

Problem 1:
The cable for the motor furnished with the RepRapDiscount_Smart_Controller. The blue and red wire are inversed, why, I don t know. The hint came from RAMPS 1.4 RepRapwiki where it is stated to wire from left to right, all of the stepper motor's wires as red, blue, green, and black or red, green, yellow, blue into the pins next to the Pololus. [reprap.org] ... otor_wires

Problem 2:
One of the five motors is malfunctioning. On X it works. On Y is blocking. On Z some times. Changing this motors solved the problem with the Y axis.

The problem is solved. See: [youtu.be]

zac
[www.eventorbot.com]

Turns out part of my problem may have been improperly installed heatsinks on my pololus. A combination of rotating those and using new firmware (sprinter downloaded from here (click the link for the prusa version)) solved my problems!

Thumbs up to Mixshop for their amazing support, sent them back the electronics, they adjusted the heatsinks, tested the board, and sent me them back (expedited post) within a few days!

In regards to stepper motor wiring issues (for anyone in the future), see the Stepper Wiring page on the wiki. Specifically the following for determining correct wiring without a meter, rather that trying to match colours:

"First, try turning the motor with your fingers, and notice how hard it is. Then, stick wires together in pairs. If the motor turns noticeable harder, you've found a pair."

MY X & Y AXIS DOESN'T ROTATE BUT IF I CONNECT TO Z AXIS THE STEPPERS ROTATES BUT IT DON'T MOVES ON X & Y DIRECTION
I AM USING RAMPS 1.4 ARDUINO AND PRONTERFACE

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2015 02:59AM by rakeshraky.

Quote
rakeshraky
MY X & Y AXIS DOESN'T ROTATE BUT IF I CONNECT TO Z AXIS THE STEPPERS ROTATES BUT IT DON'T MOVES ON X & Y DIRECTION
I AM USING RAMPS 1.4 ARDUINO AND PRONTERFACE

SO first take pronterface out of the picture

STep 1 Upoad the arduino with the test software
Step 2 Connect all stepper motors to respectively X,Y & Z
Power ON
POWER OFF
if any of the motors wasn't moving
Step 3 Swap the none working motor with a working motor . This will tell you if its the motor thats the problem. If the results are the same >
Step 4 Swap a working stepper driver with the none working stepper driver
Keep doing this until you are 100% sure all your stepper motors and stepper drivers are working

If the above proves that all of your stepper motors and stepper drivers are fine then its probably your Ramps board that's the problem.
Check the Ramps board soldering quality and re solder any joints that look bad
Check the micro step jumpers have metal inside them and are installed correctly.

It is important to use the test software because if your firmware needs to see end stops or temp inputs for motion then this may be causing your issues.
Test software >> [reprap.org]

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2015 06:54AM by bigfilsing.