Hello everyone

I'm currently building a 3D Printer for a school project. All the mechanical stuff went pretty good so far since I'm a Design Engineer apprentice... But I'm not that experienced with electronics... I've already built a printrbot simple and a Prusa I3, but those two were kits, and now I'm building it with self sourced parts. Now here's my situation: I'm trying to get the motors working. Since the mechanical parts are currently being made, It's just the 24V Ramps 1.4 with A4988 G3D Drivers (the whole thing was a kit from Gadgets3D) and the motors. I already broke one Arduino because I connected the Endstop to the wrong pins. So I already replaced the Arduino, and I also bought a "normal" A4988 Driver.

Now on to the Problem:
The motors just aren't moving.
I already searched on the internet, and here's what I found and did. I always only used 1 driver and 1 motor, no endstops, and with the Ramps Test Firmware (the 4 LEDs are blinking)
- I adjusted the driver like I read on the internet (turned fully counterclockwise, and a quarter back)
- I switched Drivers (switched between G3D drivers, and also tested with the "normal" driver)
- I switched between X, Y and Z on the Ramps
- I switched Motors (I'm using NEMA 17 40mm 1.2A/2V)
- I switched Motor wires
- I tried all of these also with Marlin and Pronterface

and after all of that there's still nothing moving.

Could someone help me, please?

(This is my first post on this forum.. so I'm sorry if it is in the wrong place...)

Without the endstops your motors may not move depending on how they are set up in your firmware.
The best way of hooking the endstops up is so they stop the motors if they are triggered or fail in some way.
It may be that as you havnt hooked the endstops up the firmware is assuming theyve been triggered or failed.
If you have endstops to hand hook them up and try again.

Otherwise try turning the end stops off in the firmware.

Gordon

Thanks for the Answer

I tried it with the endstop connected + Marlin and with the Test Firmware, I laso tried it with inverted endstops, and with manually holding them down. so when I use the M119 Command in Pronterface, it says that all of them are open. When I manually trigger it it says TRIGGERED, so I think the endstops are working. Then I disabled the endstops in the firmware and it still doesn't work. But sometimes when I connect the board to the PC and click X+ I hear a short sound, like when a motor starts moving. But its really just the sound. And I can't replicate it, it seems like its just a random thing.

Is the motor easy to turn by hand when the power is off, and difficult to turn when the power is on (indicating that the motor is energised)?

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

I tried turning the motors by hand, and it doesn't seem to make a big difference if the power is on or not (or if I tell it to move). But they are not as hard to turn as the steppers on my other printers, when the power is on. so since I already used different drivers and also tried it with new drivers, could my ramps board be broken?

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2014 12:26PM by Ramon3D.

Hi,

Unfortunately no solution is given in this thread since I'm having the ecact same issue on my mini-kossel using Marlin and Rumba board so I hope I can go ahead and build on to this.

My endstops are correct when I engage them with M119.
They are triggered when I push the endstops and open when not engaged.

I am able to connect with pronterface and send commands and receive feedback.
The motors do not want to move, not any of them and they are not under tension as they should be when connected.
Being connected or not with pronterface it doesn't make any difference for the motors.

Has this something to do with pins in the firmware?

When I push on the arrows to move the motors I receive some feedback but nothing happens,

echo:endstops hit: X:198.80 Z:199.30
echo:endstops hit: Z:198.91
echo:endstops hit: Y:199.44

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2015 05:14PM by Mendel90.

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Creality CR10/X Dual color/material
Creality CR10S
Ender3 Pro
Photon
Mendel90 (decommissioned)
Mamorubot Jupiter CoreXY

Are you sure you have 12 volts present? Endstops, thermistors, and the Arduino run on 5v from USB, so will all look OK even if 12v is absent.

- Tim

Apparently I had to turn my stepper drivers!
I never found a manual how to put them on so I tought this was worth a try.

However my axes are not moving like they should.
Homing does not work...
I can move the axes seperatly but that's about it.

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Creality CR10/X Dual color/material
Creality CR10S
Ender3 Pro
Photon
Mendel90 (decommissioned)
Mamorubot Jupiter CoreXY

I have the exactly same problem. 1 month and no solution

Try looking through this instructables. Especially the wiring and ramps parts. [www.instructables.com]

A bit more on drivers [www.instructables.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2015 08:10AM by dintid.

Hi, I know i responded in a Ramps thread but i have build a mini kossel with Rumba board.
Since the instructable is about a xyz 3d printer build with cd drives using ramps it's not usefull to me.

Thnx for the input anyway!!

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Creality CR10/X Dual color/material
Creality CR10S
Ender3 Pro
Photon
Mendel90 (decommissioned)
Mamorubot Jupiter CoreXY

Quote
Mendel90
Hi, I know i responded in a Ramps thread but i have build a mini kossel with Rumba board.
Since the instructable is about a xyz 3d printer build with cd drives using ramps it's not usefull to me.

Thnx for the input anyway!!

Don't know what instructables you are looking at at Meldel90, but the ones I list are for 1) Complete newbie guide with Arduino + Ramps and 2) Installing various drivers.
All info is valid to get the axes moving.. you can then modify to fit a delta printer, once you get the basics Down right.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2015 04:27PM by dintid.

Getting to this point seems like a major milestone &
After running the test code with no problems, successfully(or did i?) compiling the Marlin & finally getting the screen to work,
and communicating with printer & sensor temp. I find the motors locked too.

Not checked the pots yet, but assume they are ok as the test was moving no problem.
Endstops working but not sure if I have the logic right, so might try disable both.

there are a few areas I still have to try,
disable all endstops for testing?
disable sensor 0, as im not trying to heat anything just yet?

I've seen a few posts on this issue but they do seem to go off on many tangents.
I read about a setting that should only be enabled while testing but can't remember what that was or if I've got it set.
Thankfully I've only been playing with this for a day and not months.

Some info here: [forums.reprap.org]

EDIT: ITS ALIVE!
But is it safe, I disabled endstops and turned power on after linking with pronterface and its doing its stuff.
Now I have to figure out the endstops, or the manual axis limits, or both would be a good idea.

Working with Pronterface & Repitier but not with Matter Control?
Scratch that now thats working....connect first then add power.
Thanks to everyone for their hard work bringing fully assembled boards & code to market, I couldnt have got this far otherwise.

The Revolution can now begin
[www.youtube.com]

Edited 10 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2015 01:25AM by MechaBits.

one thing many seem to forget and isn't too well published is that at initial power on ( or after a reset) you can only move the motors in one direction ( towards the home position) This is a safety feature.
Until the home end stops have been used once the controller has no idea of "where" in space the axis is . Therefore it needs the home command in order to "know" where each axis is.

First thing I do whenever I'm building a machine or diagnosing one for a a friend is this

With no power applied I manually move the X & Y axis to the mid point Then I move the Z axis at least 30 mm away from the print bed.

I then switch on power and connect pronterface
One by one I check the end stop switches are working correctly ( hold switch and send M119 to give status feedback)
Then I issue the x home command ( holding my finger close to the power socket to switch off power if the axis moves in the wrong direction
Then the other axis one by one again. Only when all are working and homed do I try any other movement

Handy to know, as I'm running without the endstops at the moment,
when the printer is turned on it assumes its at 0,0,0, (half way on the X)but it will only move + values from start(upto 200mm),
it will come back when - is used until it gets back to where it started, then no further. So its not a bad setup just position everything where you want it.
Zmin, Xmin Ymin then fire things up, no need for the min endstops. I'm still waiting for a few more Mech endstops to arrive, to keep things simple, as at the moment I had a mix of mech & optical, but the mech's dont need the power, but I assume the opticals do, and to add to my confusion, I had opti on Z-min and Y-min, and Mech' on Z-max, and X-max, but I tried reversing the X axis, so it would think thats the Min, but then you have the pullup's to configure On for Mech off for Opti's, then there where a number of places to do that.

So for now I turned them off, I will probably add more Mech endstops so the wiring & pullups are all the same, then maybe reintroduce the opticals when i've a little more experience with Marlin. I've had to hit the reset a few times, postman could save a nasty accident.

Even I am facing same issue.
Currently, I am using Arduino mega2560 + ramps 1.4 + a4988 with marlin firmware for my DLP 3D printer. It has one stepper motor for Z axis movement, no endstops (willing to add it later) & haven't done any changes to marlin firmware.
If anybody have solution for this please help. thanks

the first step for me is to download and run the simple test program that will test all the motors forwards and backwards regardless of endstops.

So, does your motors moving now regardless of endstops ? if yes, then how u did that ? which test program you have tried ? I'm facing same issue with my z axis motor please help

Quote
yogesh.dp
Even I am facing same issue.
Currently, I am using Arduino mega2560 + ramps 1.4 + a4988 with marlin firmware for my DLP 3D printer. It has one stepper motor for Z axis movement, no endstops (willing to add it later) & haven't done any changes to marlin firmware.
If anybody have solution for this please help. thanks

You need to download Pronterface/printrun or some other host-program you can use to send Terminal commands to it.

Just because you havn't added endstops doesn't mean the firmware isn't looking for them. (I am not sure about default behaviour in all firmwares, so you have to make sure yourself)

When you have downloaded your host program, then connect to your printer and issue the M119 command.

After issueing the command you will most likely see some endstops with the status of OPEN and some with the status TRIGGERED

If any of them are listed as TRIGGERED, you need to fix it in firmware.

Complete Endstops walkthrough here - yes, it can be used even if you do not use endstops. Just disable them instead of enabling them

Edited: inserted links to articles etc.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2015 01:23AM by dintid.

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My Instructables - both total newbie instructables and some for intermediate users.
My Designs on Thingiverse
YouTube channel containing a few 3D printing videos - they are videos for my Instructables, and mostly not standalone.
Ultius / Tantillus Thingiverse Group

Prusa i3 I do not know which brand. I know this is an old topic but I am having the same issue here. None of the motors work. I flashed it and then connected. I see that the end stops should be triggered to let the machine know where it stands. Great idea I thin so I did that one by one. Now that I do that it says the stop is triggered all good then I hit the next one and it shows that that one and the previous one is triggered. I then go on to the third and it shows that one and the previous one is triggered. I then run the M119 command again without any triggered but it says all three are triggered.
I am communicating which is great but ai cant get anything to work thus far. I took this on from someone who had it apart and I took it all the way apart and started from scratch. I had heard about the drivers being touchy so I bought new ones and a new Mega board and started from there.
Any thoughts would be awesome ai hope some are going to get notified of this post. Thanks, everyone.

Prusa i3.
I do not know which brand. I know this is an old topic but I am having the same issue here. None of the motors work. I flashed it and then connected. I see that the end stops should be triggered to let the machine know where it stands. Great idea I thin so I did that one by one. Now that I do that it says the stop is triggered all good then I hit the next one and it shows that that one and the previous one is triggered. I then go on to the third and it shows that one and the previous one is triggered. I then run the M119 command again without any triggered but it says all three are triggered.
I am communicating which is great but ai cant get anything to work thus far. I took this on from someone who had it apart and I took it all the way apart and started from scratch. I had heard about the drivers being touchy so I bought new ones and a new Mega board and started from there.
Any thoughts would be awesome ai hope some are going to get notified of this post. Thanks, everyone.

so just to be clear your endstop say triggered whther they are physically triggered or not ???

WHich control board do you have ?
WHich firmware have you uploaded ?