RAMPS 1.4 E0 appears dead?

So, after two years of saving my pennies, matching parts, and spending an hour a month assembling, I am within striking distance of getting my first 3d up and running. (a Mendel i2, Arduino Mega2650, RAMPS 1.4, Marlin)

Last week, I finished the general assembly, and started running through the paces, testing everything to get ready for a test print. The LCD is up, SD card reading, and rotary control is registering. Also, the X, Y, and Z axies are all working beautifully. However, I can't seem get get any life out of E0.

I started troubleshooting by swinging the motor cable over to X. It works perfectly, so I know the motor and wiring are bang on.
Next, I tried swapping the A4988s between the E0 and X channels. X still running strong, and no life on E0.

This leaves me at either a bad E0 channel on the board, or a program error.

I am completely willing to believe a programing error, as I have hit a few bugs in setting this up that were the result of either my not knowing where settings lived, or Marlin having a bug or two of its own. However, if it's a bad E0 channel, I can chase code all day and get no where.

I wasn't seeing anything quite like this in the threads, so here I am, looking to the pros.
Question 1: Has anyone seen this particular issue before.
Question 2: If not, is there a way that I can change my set up to try using E1, instead of E0? This would help me test the code vs. hardware dilema.

Thanks in advance, everyone.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/2015 06:38PM by BlackDragon.

Are you trying to run the extruder without heating up the hot end.
If you are the firmware prevents the extruder from running.
For testing with no fillament in the extruder send command M302 to the printer .
This allows cold extrusion
You should then be able to run the extruder.

Well, duh.... *facepalm*

Ok, I feel stupid. On the plus side, I just picked up a roll of ABS and a roll of PETG, to play around with.
Guess I'll just load one up and hit "Go."

Thanks for the sanity check.


EDIT: Yup. As soon as I brought the temp up, the extruder started working. Thanks again.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2015 04:38PM by BlackDragon.