I am Frying all my Ramps

Hey

I am afraid I just fried my 3th set of Ramp 1.4/Arduino. Two of the arduino's seem still to be programmable one is not responsive.

I seem to be moving backhands on my first set I could make my steppers move, I then made the die mistake of trying to adjust the pot's on the steppen driver and schortend something.

I purhased a second set but could not replicatie any movement, the third set was the worst smoke came out of the arduino so the third Arduino is dead.

I tried all possible permutaties between Arduino's and Ramps mixing the 3 sets but no luck I also have 4 sets of stappers and moved those around also without any luck.

Can anyone help me out ?

I run repetier host on my iMac

On a PC laptop. each time I switch the 12v on the PC crashes this is not happening on the imac.

When I could still move the stappers both steppers and driver heated up considerabel now all is ice cold, but Arduino seems to heat up.

I testen my two remaining arduino's with the blink sketch to check if they are alive.

Some pictures to show what I build, I am trying to build the Cherry 3D printer as in instructables.


What should be my next step by another set maybee But I first want to understand what I am doing wrong.


Samuel

Check the underside of the ramps pcb for any burned out copper tracks,
Remove all stepper drivers and try arduino/ramps, if ok try fitting 1 stepper at a time.


*note* mains i/p on power supply, brown is live and blue is neutral, but that wouldn't cause damage.

Hallo

Can't find any burned tracks.

Did check the voltage regulator on the Arduino and they seem all three to be broken. I connected a 12v Supply and then check input and output voltage. Input was 12 v as expected output was 6.2 I persume this needs to be 5V?


Samuel

I need to understand what I did wrong, I haven't connected an LCD on the third Arduino but did do so on Arduino 1 and 2.

The mains input the neutral should be blue on the power supply

The neutral and phase are also backwards on your plug socket...

Net result is it is 'fine', but will cause electricians to turn in their graves

It seems, you are using 28BYJ steppers?! They have to be modified to run with DRV8825 or any other bipolar drivers.
See attached pic and also consult the Cherry-instructables. They should've mentioned it somewhere...

Hey

Yes I did modify the stepper motors and I was capable of getting a movement out of it.

The first set-up I used was with the iMac and seemed to work quite well, I fried the arduino at that time by using a conductrive screwdriver when modifying the pot on the stepper driver.

Then I switched to the laptop and the mishap twice happend when I flipped the switch on my power supply, I notice quite some issue's with badly gronden USB here on the forum?

My 12V powersupply and the power supply of the laptop where on two different powerplugs.

Samuel

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2016 11:47AM by SamuelB1002.

Quote

My powersupply and the power supply of the laptop where on two different powerplays.

That explains a lot...ground loop issues are deadly for ramps/arduino. If you are brave enough to try, use your laptop without powersupply and see if something odd happens again.

Hey

And yes I did try without powersupply of the laptop and fried another one . This time I went to the local tablab we ran through many items crosschecking what might go wrong but yes one more died on me.

I am now being very carefull with Arduino number 5. I did not have acces to another Ramps so I am reusing one of the sets I have I have no indicatie they have an issue however ???

With Arduino Number 5 that is still alive currently I noticed the following:

If I only use one of the input connections the 11+ A port then the powersupply's ventilator starts up and Leds illuminatie

If I do the same with the 5A port nothing happens no Leds light up and no ventilator on the powersupply.

No idea what this might mean?

Samuel

Are you sure, you've wired the powersupply correctly to the green connector?
It should be GND + GND + seen from outside of the board to the middle.

Hi SamuelB1002,

At first, make suspicious problems simpler. I recommend to remove RAMPS and check out if your bare Arduino MEGA itself runs or not. You can do it using with Atmel AVR ISP mk2 (genuine or very cheap clone with 6p wiring cable). Some time, firmware needs reflashing. I'd faced with fried AVR chip that seemed broken by over voltage came from thermistor's long and bad wiring (twisting wires strongly recommended for safety).

Make RAMPS and a healthy Arduino MEGA together again, then connect therrmistor wires and check temperatures with fingers touch in order. If temperature doesn't change then some thing wrong around thermistor or AVR analog port(s). Next, connect heaters and check out if they run correctly. Finally, put motor drivers and see if motors run good.

RAMPS is basically a plain interface board between Arduino MEGA and motor drivers, thermistors, heaters etc. So, trouble shooting isn't harder than imagined.

Good luck!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2017 09:11PM by Genie.

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Genie - designer of bitfab::Hexagon Heatedbed in purple. PM me if you wish to get original one of the best quality.

I pretty new to Arduino's but if you have the USB powering the Arduino and you also have a power supply connected you have to remove D1 from the Ramps board so you aren't sending power to the Arduino from your power supply. I would do what Genie said and start from scratch and get your Mega running alone and work step by step. Acoording to what I have read reversing the polarities on the input power and installing the motor drivers backwards will cause certain death. Your motor drivers are in correctly so thats ruled out. A multimeter might help you spot the issue. I usually refer to the Ramps wiki page. If I had to guess I would bet that your problem is either something involved in the wiring of your power supply, or your stepper motor connection/modification. I have been having a lot of issues myself and I just go step by step ruling things out until I isolate the problem.

@Draytology

Somethings not right there... (or its just the way I read it)

You can have USB and a power supply to a mega no issues. the mega is built with this in mind. (It switches out the usb supply via a mosfet when it has external power)

The power supply can be either from the ramps via D1 to the vin pin on the mega or the dc in jack. but not both at the same time as they both feed the voltage regulator.

The mega power supply should not exceed 12v, no matter where it is coming from.

Only reason to remove D1 on a ramps is when you wish to exceed 12v. So you remove D1, supply the ramps with > 12v and the mega is powered separately with a 6v to 12v supply