No movement from Z axis.

Im using the Folger Tech Prusa i3 acrylic kit.
It uses an arduino mega 2560 and RAMPS 1.4 shield.

Ive been going back and forth through email for the past couple weeks (months) with their tech support trying to figure this out. Ive so far received 2 replacement megas, 3 RAMPS, and an additional set of stepper drivers. So in total I have 3 arduinos, 4 RAMPS shields, and 2 sets of stepper drivers, all of which Im assuming to be totally functional at this point.

So I have everything wired and oriented 100% correctly, according to their manual and multiple sources Ive found on the internet. Im using Marlin_RAMPS_EPCOS_i38 firmware.
In repetier-host I can home the X and the Y, and freely move them with manual control thereafter. The Z doesn't move. I issue the command to home the Z and the status changes to "n Commands Waiting" and just continues to stack them up until I emergency stop. If I plug any of my other motor wires into the Z motors, they turn effortlessly, so I doubt it is getting stuck anywhere. If I plug my Z motor wires into the other motors, the don't move. No surprise there. I've tried swapping in the spare stepper driver and also the known working X driver, with no luck. My Z driver will work for the X motor, however.
I haven't probed but Im almost certain theres no current leaving the Z motor headers of the ramps shield, and I have a really hard time believing that in my pile of hardware there isn't a single working board.

We've tried disabling the endstops, disabling the MAX endstops, inverting the endstops, adjusting Z feed rate, inverting Z motors, swapping drivers all around, swapping boards all around, swapping wires all around. No Z movement, not even a noise or a struggle.

I could probably keep up the email chain for another couple of weeks and be drowning in replacement electronics, but Id rather have a working printer. Anybody have any suggestions?

Quote
chz420
Im using the Folger Tech Prusa i3 acrylic kit.
It uses an arduino mega 2560 and RAMPS 1.4 shield.

Ive been going back and forth through email for the past couple weeks (months) with their tech support trying to figure this out. Ive so far received 2 replacement megas, 3 RAMPS, and an additional set of stepper drivers. So in total I have 3 arduinos, 4 RAMPS shields, and 2 sets of stepper drivers, all of which Im assuming to be totally functional at this point.

So I have everything wired and oriented 100% correctly, according to their manual and multiple sources Ive found on the internet. Im using Marlin_RAMPS_EPCOS_i38 firmware.
In repetier-host I can home the X and the Y, and freely move them with manual control thereafter. The Z doesn't move. I issue the command to home the Z and the status changes to "n Commands Waiting" and just continues to stack them up until I emergency stop. If I plug any of my other motor wires into the Z motors, they turn effortlessly, so I doubt it is getting stuck anywhere. If I plug my Z motor wires into the other motors, the don't move. No surprise there. I've tried swapping in the spare stepper driver and also the known working X driver, with no luck. My Z driver will work for the X motor, however.
I haven't probed but Im almost certain theres no current leaving the Z motor headers of the ramps shield, and I have a really hard time believing that in my pile of hardware there isn't a single working board.

We've tried disabling the endstops, disabling the MAX endstops, inverting the endstops, adjusting Z feed rate, inverting Z motors, swapping drivers all around, swapping boards all around, swapping wires all around. No Z movement, not even a noise or a struggle.

I could probably keep up the email chain for another couple of weeks and be drowning in replacement electronics, but Id rather have a working printer. Anybody have any suggestions?

Have you tried reflashing or reinstalling your firmware? Considering that it does not work with new boards, and the Z motors turn when you plug them elsewhere, I suspect that is has something to do with your firmware. Try out this more up-to-date version Here

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Thanks for the reply, I flashed the firmware you linked and, aside from the axes homing in the wrong direction now, there's no change. My Z still wont respond. "n Commands Waiting"

Quote
chz420
Thanks for the reply, I flashed the firmware you linked and, aside from the axes homing in the wrong direction now, there's no change. My Z still wont respond. "n Commands Waiting"

Have you checked z-endstop status? If it is triggered for some reason the motor is not going to move.

If you use repetier host software you also need to specify your printer in the GUI. Mostly important if it homes to max instead of min positions.

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Thanks for your suggestion.
I made the small change in the firmware to disable the max endstops, and running M119 gives me the result I expect, only showing "triggered" when I press the endstops manually. I have also tried swapping out to a spare endstop for the Z.

Is it actually possible for me to have received 3 broken boards in a row? That are specifically broken in moving the Z axis?
The only other thread I found describing my exact problem, (non moving Z, motors turn when plugged into different headers), describes having to buy an arduino and ramps off of Amazon to finally fix the issue. Is it really shoddy soldering that would consistently give me the same problem? The connections all look fine, no bent pins or headers. I mean, out of the 4 ramps some are better than others but nothing that would make me look twice. What are they like sending me replacements out of the trash can or something because I wouldn't be able to tell.
There has to be something I am missing.

Quote
chz420
Thanks for your suggestion.
I made the small change in the firmware to disable the max endstops, and running M119 gives me the result I expect, only showing "triggered" when I press the endstops manually. I have also tried swapping out to a spare endstop for the Z.

Is it actually possible for me to have received 3 broken boards in a row? That are specifically broken in moving the Z axis?
The only other thread I found describing my exact problem, (non moving Z, motors turn when plugged into different headers), describes having to buy an arduino and ramps off of Amazon to finally fix the issue. Is it really shoddy soldering that would consistently give me the same problem? The connections all look fine, no bent pins or headers. I mean, out of the 4 ramps some are better than others but nothing that would make me look twice. What are they like sending me replacements out of the trash can or something because I wouldn't be able to tell.
There has to be something I am missing.

You shouldn't disable neither min or max endstops to get it to Work. It's good you tested using M119.
I have a guide here on endstop if needed: [www.instructables.com]
Here on motion: [www.instructables.com]

Does your printer home to 0 on all axes? Asking as my UM2 homes to MAX on Z and Y but to MIN on X. It Means I have to set up repetier host to match it, or I can not get it to move.

Can you move it using LCD?

Quote
chz420
Is it actually possible for me to have received 3 broken boards in a row?

Sure it's possible, just not probable.

Have you inserted all 3 jumpers for Z-axes? (for 1/16 multistepping)
What is you Vref measured at? (multimeter with + on the small trimpot and Gnd on GND on the powerplug on ramps with power on - do not let the probe slide on the driver). It should be at least 0.35 to be sure the motor is moving... I have mine at 0.8, but it is motor dependent.

On Ramps, there are 2 rows of pins for the Z-axis motor. Have you tried both of them seperately?

Have you measured, using a multimeter, on the pins to check if current is sent out or if there are shorts between the pins?

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My repetier-host is set to home all three axes to min, and the printer will home the X and Y flawlessly, and completely freeze when I ask it to home the Z. I can trick the software into unfreezing by just manually pressing and holding the Z endstop, the text goes solid black 0.00, and I am free to add +50 or whatever, but its not useful as the motors still wont turn.

My LCD acts strangely too, its hard to tell if it is related or just a bad LCD, if I turn the knob my temp readings flicker and the feed rate snaps from 101% to 100% back and forth. I can open the menu but not scroll through it or make selections. Also, it lists my X and Y current position as a solid 0, whereas it states the Z is at 00.000, not sure if thats intentional.

I have all 3 jumpers for all of the axes. My vref is .35 on my X and extruder, .6 on my Y (a larger motor), and for my Z ive tried between .35 and .7 with no result, it is at .7 now.

Ive tried plugging one motor in at a time, to each different side of pins, and get no result. I haven't probed around the pins yet I was afraid to damage something funnily enough.

Edit- Ive read now both of your instructables and started over with a fresh firmware and configured it exactly how I have my printer set up. I still have the same problem, the Z just wont move. Is it possible I need to increase the Z travel rate? I suppose the next step is to measure current coming out of the Z pins. How would I do that exactly? Power on, send G28 Z, and measure off which pins? Im looking at this

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2016 01:04PM by chz420.

I do not know correct step/mm for your machine. Having it defined incorrectly ca result in no movements.

You say 2 interesting things:
You can make the axis move if you depress the endstop. Previously you said it read as open when not depressed and triggered when pressed.
If the axis can move in 1 direction when you trigger the endstop it means you have the movement logic configured wrong.

Second
Try completely disconnect the entire LCD assembly. It is either faulty, misconfiguted or you have bad 5v. If the LCD is bad it might affect the rest.

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No, I can't move the axis after pressing the endstop, it just causes the software to unfreeze. Im using Repetier-Host and it will show the status as "n Commands Waiting" where n just stacks up the more commands I try to issue after trying to home the Z. I thought if I could trick the software into thinking the Z was homed that I would be able to move it freely up and down. I still could not.

I have had the LCD disconnected aside from the first test of it.

I was just thinking the step/mm could be the difference between it turning effortlessly while plugged into the X header and not at all in the Z.

You mentioned a bad 5v, could this be sign of a faulty PSU which has been frying everything I connect it to?

Try setting the steps to the same for Z as X and see if the motor can move.
If the microstepping is wildly out of whack in regards to steps, then it can cause the motor to not Work.

Regarding bad psu:
It could be issue, but really hard to remote diagnose... it does not seem probable the problem is in the other Electronics parts as you have had everything replaced several times.. bad 5v shouldn't just affect 1 axis though.
Many a burnt board is caused by people removing endstops, motors or similar while some power is still on.. it being PSU or USB.

You can remove the endstop alltogether to eliminate it from the equation. Just disconnect it and invert the setting in firmware so it shows OPEN when you get a status.

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The default values are here

#define HOMING_FEEDRATE {50*60, 50*60, 50, 0}
#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT {80,80,3860,90}
#define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE {250, 250, 2, 22}
#define DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION {1000,1000,5,1000}

and I changed it to

#define HOMING_FEEDRATE {50*60, 50*60, 50*60, 0}
#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT {80,80,80,90}
#define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE {250, 250, 250, 22}
#define DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION {1000,1000,1000,1000}

No luck unfortunately.
I also changed the travel rate to 4800 mm/min in the software, the same as the X travel rate, with no luck either.

I unplugged all of the endstops and M119 reads "open" for all of them. I can move the X and Y freely, but no Z.

I've never touched or made changes to the board while it was powered.

Assuming that all RAMPS shields are all broken with regards to the Z axis, because apparently my house is on top of an Indian burial ground that emits a magnetic field powerful enough to destroy any Z axis pins that come near it... Is there any way to maybe wire the two motors in series and use the second extruder pins to run the Z? I don't really want to spend another $50+ on genuine parts with only a wish and a prayer that they will fix the problem.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2016 01:38PM by chz420.

So I modified the pins.h to use the extra extruder (E1) pins for the Z instead.

#define Z_STEP_PIN 36
#define Z_DIR_PIN 34
#define Z_ENABLE_PIN 30
#define Z_MIN_PIN 18
#define Z_MAX_PIN 19

#define Z2_STEP_PIN 36
#define Z2_DIR_PIN 34
#define Z2_ENABLE_PIN 30

I then plugged one Z motor into the E1 pins just to test, and I'm still getting "n Commands Waiting" in Repetier and no movement from the motors.
Next, I tried swapping the X pins to the E1 and the Z pins to the X pins, such that my "Z-axis" was the X motor plugged into the X pins, and my "X-axis" was the Z motor plugged into the E1 pins.
Asking the "X-axis" (Z in E1) to home gives me "n Commands Waiting" and asking the "Z-axis" (X in X) to home would 50% of the time move my carriage assembly left, and 50% of the time right. If I let it continue all the way right to the endstop, it will bump off the endstop, reverse direction, and continue left until I emergency stop. Strange considering that it is the X_MIN endstop that it is hitting.

I've checked all my cables for continuity and the Z motors definitely turn when plugged into different pins with the same cables, even with the whole carriage assembly and threaded rods attached.

When I Google the "Commands Waiting" they all talk about bad USB driver. Have you tried a different computer and/or just a different USB cable?

Have you tried using a different hos program than Repetier?
Try downloading [www.pronterface.com] and see if you have more luck with that one.. I use it to fault-find and test on my printers.

Have you tried both sets of pins for the Z motor?

IF you end up buying something new, you might want to either look at a Duet 0.85 from the UK or an MKS Sbase 1.2 from aliexpress.

I do not know the firmware you are using, but I'm using Marlin Release Candidate 3 with great success:
[github.com]

Maybe plug in that LCD screen and see if you can move it that way. Try unplugging all other drivers than just the Z ones.

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I've tried 3 different cables with no success. I've tried different ports both regular and USB 3.0.
Funnily enough, I built a new PC between attempts and I had this problem on both motherboards. My USB driver is the "VIA USB eXtensible Host Controller."
I have only one COM port in the device manager (COM1) which just reads "communications port," but when I plug in the Arduino it comes up as COM4, which Windows 7 auto installed for me.
Should I be using a virtual com port driver? Such as the one found here?

I have tried Pronterface, Cura, and Repetier-host.

I've tried both sets of Z pins and pretty much any and every other 4 pin combo on the ramps via firmware mods, so I doubt its the board giving me issues.

$140 seems a little steep for something that I'm not entirely sure will fix the problem, also everywhere I look seems to be sold out of the Duet .85, and the MKS Sbase 1.2 is listed as "no longer available" from aliexpress.

The LCD screen reads correctly, it displays like it is written in the firmware, but I cant scroll or make selections in the menu, I think the LCD is bad unless it is related to the other problem.

Quote
chz420
I've tried 3 different cables with no success. I've tried different ports both regular and USB 3.0.
Funnily enough, I built a new PC between attempts and I had this problem on both motherboards. My USB driver is the "VIA USB eXtensible Host Controller."
I have only one COM port in the device manager (COM1) which just reads "communications port," but when I plug in the Arduino it comes up as COM4, which Windows 7 auto installed for me.
Should I be using a virtual com port driver? Such as the one found here?

I have tried Pronterface, Cura, and Repetier-host.

I've tried both sets of Z pins and pretty much any and every other 4 pin combo on the ramps via firmware mods, so I doubt its the board giving me issues.

$140 seems a little steep for something that I'm not entirely sure will fix the problem, also everywhere I look seems to be sold out of the Duet .85, and the MKS Sbase 1.2 is listed as "no longer available" from aliexpress.

The LCD screen reads correctly, it displays like it is written in the firmware, but I cant scroll or make selections in the menu, I think the LCD is bad unless it is related to the other problem.

If your drivers are installed for your motherboard, you do not need additional drivers as far as I know. I take it you allready have installed Arduino IDE? [www.arduino.cc]

I don't know where you looked, but the manufacturer of the real MKS Sbase 1.2 still sell them:
[www.aliexpress.com]

I don't know where you bought your ramps and such, because those can be had for $5-10 or so.

Have you tried a different PSU? It seems like pretty much the only constant... I find it strange though.

What firmware did you say you had used Again? link please.

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Yeah I've been using the Arduino IDE to flash all the firmwares I've been trying.
The ramps are about $5 a piece. About $25 for the ramps + arduino, and 21 days shipping from china.

I don't have another PSU to test with. Unless I can rig one up from my lounging couches or something, lol.

The first firmware I tried was this, which was from the kit sellers' instructions drive.
I tried the marlin release candidate 3 "custom Folger Tech Prusa i3 release" linked earlier in this thread.
And the one I used to start fresh from and do myself after reading your instructables was the one you linked, Marlin RC3

If you can get your hands on a 12v wall wart or something you should be fine. As long as you don't try heating up the heated bed, 1map for ramps should be plenty to test z-axis.
Power Arduino usingUSB while using wallwart or similar on ramps.

Aside from that I'm really stumped... only thing I could think of is some sort of localized short that happens when you Mount it at your place or something!

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I have it mounted directly to the acrylic frame. The pins are contacting the acrylic, I was told that was fine.

I took a multimeter to my PSU leads and I'm getting exactly 12.30V across the board. Probably one of the most consistent PSUs I've ever tested.

What else can I possibly do? I'm totally at a loss.

Quote
chz420
I have it mounted directly to the acrylic frame. The pins are contacting the acrylic, I was told that was fine.

I took a multimeter to my PSU leads and I'm getting exactly 12.30V across the board. Probably one of the most consistent PSUs I've ever tested.

What else can I possibly do? I'm totally at a loss.

Try measuring vref Again, just to be sure on z driver.

Then measure your 5v on Ramps:
On Endstops
On all 5v on AUX 3 and AUX 4 (those Associated with LCD)


I know this isn't directly related to the z-motor, but something is going on, and since you mention problems with LCD and we havn't measured 5 yet, you should try it.

Measure with and without USB plugged in.

Edit: I'll recommend using a wire with a dupont plug on it's end to do the testing, as it is easy to short something out if using multimeter, unless you have surgeon steady hands

edits: image and bold markup

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2016 04:43AM by dintid.

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Okay, my multimeter leads have screw on caps around the probes, so it was super easy to just unscrew them, stick a small wire with a crimp connector on the other end in, and just screw the cap back on.
So, sticking the ground on a GND pin and just going around probing all the 5v pins, I was reading 4.95V on all of them, except for the "servo" section, 0.00 on all of them, but I think they are intentionally disabled in the firmware, perhaps.
Plugging IN the USB raises the voltage of all the pins to 4.97V

My vref is ~0.40V for the X, Z, E0, and E1. ~0.60V for the Y. However, my X and Y pins are giving me 12.60V and my Z, E0, and E1 are giving me 7.05V is this correct?

Quote
chz420
Okay, my multimeter leads have screw on caps around the probes, so it was super easy to just unscrew them, stick a small wire with a crimp connector on the other end in, and just screw the cap back on.
So, sticking the ground on a GND pin and just going around probing all the 5v pins, I was reading 4.95V on all of them, except for the "servo" section, 0.00 on all of them, but I think they are intentionally disabled in the firmware, perhaps.
Plugging IN the USB raises the voltage of all the pins to 4.97V

My vref is ~0.40V for the X, Z, E0, and E1. ~0.60V for the Y. However, my X and Y pins are giving me 12.60V and my Z, E0, and E1 are giving me 7.05V is this correct?

I'm not very good at calculating vref/voltage to be honest.

I thought about something else: Have you used the same Jumpers for Z-driver on all ramps?
I have had a couple of bad jumpers, which didn't shorten out the pins as they were supposed to. Try testing them... or just put the 3 from X to your Z.

[reprap.org]
jumper Yes/No step size
1 2 3
no no no full step
yes no no half step
no yes no 1/4 step
yes yes no 1/8 step
no no yes 1/16 step
yes no yes 1/32 step
no yes yes 1/64 step
yes yes yes 1/128 step

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Okay, I swapped the jumpers from the Y to the Z, no change.

I went around testing each individual pin for each axis, with Vcc and usb connected.
I attached a pretty sweet table I made in paint with my findings.

It seems that no matter what I change the Vref to, my pins stay constant.

I'm not really particularily good at vref and voltage readings, so afraid I can't use the data to do any kind of Diagnostics.

You have tried using say X driver on Z?
Also try remove all drivers except Z.

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I had your exact problem and I just got mine working. Unfortunately, I DID replace the arduino and RAMPS boards. But I also had a faulty stepper driver. I just took it off and now everything works fine. Unfortunately, you may have to replace the Arduino board. A stepper driver caused a short after switching boards though. So I had two issues to deal with.

Okay, after getting those readings I ditched the 3 wonky drivers, and went ahead and tested them all one by one.
Out of 10 drivers 4 were bad.
I found a configuration of ramps/arduino/drivers that gave me 12.60V across all 4 pins, for all 4 relevant drivers (X, Y, Z, E0), however, I couldn't connect this arduino to the computer. I unplugged the ramps from it, and it connects. I figured that was strange, so I tried unplugging a known bad driver from the E1, and voila. 5v on all 5v pins, 12.60v across all motor pins, computer recognized it. Flashed firmware and tried it in Repetier. It works! All 3 axes home, bed and extruder heat up just fine!
It was just a magic combination of parts and pieces that finally gave me the results I wanted!

So if you have this problem, TEST YOUR DRIVERS, voltage should be constant between all 4 motor pins. If you have a bad driver, TRASH IT, it will suck voltage away from your 5V!

I was under the impression you had tried the X drive on Z?

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I did, I swapped the drivers all around but evidently having at least one bad one plugged in would make the others not work. I was just switching them around, and plugging the unused one in the E1 slot, "for safe-keeping" I thought. I got a bunch of replacement ramps and arduinos, but only had 2 sets of drivers. Mixing and matching the good ones together and pulling out and trashing all the bad ones finally got me a setup that worked.
By the way, one of my ramps was giving me ~7V even with the good drivers. And one arduino and ramps combo was completely fried. So I have 2 working arduinos and 2 working ramps at the end of the day. I probably should have broke out the multimeter sooner and tested all my drivers before they sent me a bunch of replacements, because that ended up causing more confusion than good.

You got it working, which is the main thing here. Not really your job to think about the multimeter. That's the seller's job really.

One lesson here is to unplug all unneeded hardware when dealing with troublesome issues, in order to limit the numbers of failurepoints. I really thought you were only doing this with just 1 driver, or I would have said it previously.. but that leads to: assumption is the mother of...

Have fun with your newly functioning printer.

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