Stepper motor testing without temperature sensors

I need to do a project on making a 3d cupcake frosting printer. It does not need a heating bed or thermistors. I am using Marlin firmware and pronterface. The electronics and wiring is done and is correct. Steps per mm was calculated and updated. But while trying to test the stepper motors, they are not moving at all. I am sure its some problem related to the thermal requirements before staring. But i dont know how to solve it. Can anyone help?

For X,Y and Z There is no thermal requirements

For E there is thermal requirements... this can be disable with gcode (M302) or you can tell the printer its always hot enough to avoid this with fake thermistor tables.

How are you testing?
what sort of a E extruder do you have? (im guessing a paste type extruder)

Do the stepper motors get energized (ie they lock in place and dont turn freely by hand)

have you checked your endstops (M119) with endstops unplugged they are triggered and the machine thinks it is at min and max position simultaneously and cannot move

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2019 11:43PM by Dust.

I am trying to test the motors using pronterface. The extruder is a simple syringe arrangement with an extruder motor to push it down. The stepper motors can be turn freely (no stiffness). But, it is not even trying to rotate when I try manual axis movement using pronterface. The end stops are not triggered. I checked it with M119 command.

if X,Y and Z are not working there is something clearly wrong.


there are lots of possibilities.

Here are the top 5....
1) the steppers are not wired to the stepper drivers correctly. (miss wiring is very easy)
2) the stepper drivers are missing or in backwards. (if your board has plug in stepper drivers)
3) the stepper driver are just dead... all of them being dead would be unusual, but not unheard of
4) the stepper drivers are not getting power. Eg if you have a ramps you need 12v on the 5 amp power input.
5) the MOTHERBOARD setting in your firmware is not set to your hardware.

Please provide details of controllers, pictures of wiring, details of your stepper motors and configuration files.

Stepper driver is DRV 8825, The motors came in with molex connector. Motors used are Nema 17 for the axis, the drivers are connected the right way, i checked the pins and the wordings on ramps board before connecting. I am attaching the configuration file along with the photos of the board.

Images look good, but cant see where you plugged in 12v.... there are two plugs the 10Amp plug that just powers the heated bed and the 6amp that powers everything else including steppers.


stepper drivers look ok.

no endstops... are you sure you sent the printer a M119 and it replied open to all endstops?
Take a screen shot to confirm

Also without endstop you need to tell it where 0 is, and you can only move from 0 to larger. or larger to 0, but not -ve. Power on position is set 0 by default.

Do you have a multmeter?

if you do, unplug a stepper motor from the controller and run a continuity test from black and green wires through the stepper. They should be connected
also test red and blue wires they also should be connected. Test there is no connection from green to red or green to blue

You configuration.h is the wrong board, its ramps 14 not a 1,3 but that wouldn't stop movement (only 1 servo pin different)

I see that you selected that you have a ATX power supply, did you turn it on? It has to be on to move steppers.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2019 09:03PM by Dust.

It worked !! Thankyou. The problem was that I used the wrong terminals for power supply (it was connected to 11amps) . The extruder motor is also running. But in between the runs, the printer is stopping. Im getting an error message. What can possible be the problem now?

New error is Extruder switched off. Temperature difference between temp sensors too high.

not sure where that error is coming from. The closest I can find is related to #define TEMP_SENSOR_1_AS_REDUNDANT

Did you enable this setting? (Not in the Configuration.h you posted)

NB the version of marlin you are attempting to install is ridiculously old! v1.0 This hasnt been updated in 2 years!
You should alt least download 1.1 from [github.com]
This also makes disabling the temperature dependencies really easy.
All you do is #define TEMP_SENSOR_0 999
and the controller thinks ts always 100 degrees C and will thus extrude without any errors

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2019 11:48PM by Dust.

The problem is sorted, i went to the latest version and used the dummy values. Now there are no more errors. Thanks a lot mate. You saved my life!!!