Axes not stopping at end-stops amongst other things

I am using a Prusa Mendel that I assembled in 2011. Things came up and the project got shelved. I am just getting back into the game now.

The facts:

• I am using an Arduino Mega 2560 with an Ultimachine RAMPS 1.4 board.
• I am using the Repetier 0.91 firmware with a default configuration.
• NEMA 17 steppers... see below for spec sheet
• Steps per mm is set to 80
• The voltages for my stepper drivers are set at 0.40v for X and Y, and 0.5v for Z. They have heatsinks and a fan on them.

These are the stepper motors I am using:
https://ultimachine.com/sites/default/files/Nema17StepperMotor.pdf

Whenever I try to use the manual control, and try to step a motor 10mm or return to home they just make noise and do not move. I have tried with lower voltages on the stepper controller, as well as higher voltages.

I set the print area to very very small in an attempt to have the axes stay "in bounds". And, well, that didn't appear to affect anything as you can see by this video I just took:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUrxS2tGBGU (headphone users beware: it starts out loud. very loud).

In the video you can see that it rams the X carriage into the end, and then when it comes back it hits the end-stop, and pushes the carriage and end-stop into the end of the axis. I have verified that my end stops DO work by issuing command M119 to the printer.

Z-axis appears to work and step alright.

Thanks for the help. Looking forward to setting this up properly and getting a print out of it after 2.5 years sitting idle.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2014 12:47AM by ajdale.

It looks like you need to invert both your x and y motors in firmware to me.

When pressing home the axis should travel towards the end-stop limit switch, 'bounce' and then settle gently onto the end-stop to set the 0 reference for that axis.

Your X and Y axes are moving away from the end-stop and will not stop. Changing the build area will not affect this as the build area is measured as a positive measurement from the 0 reference.

I'm not familiar with Repetier firmware but invert x and invert y should be easy to find and you should just invert whatever value is there.

edit: sorry, not correct at all

what happens if you try and move the bed say 1mm on a single axis in either direction?

good luck

adavidm

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/2014 11:44AM by adavidm.

I think I must be completely failing at reading today, sorry!

You say manually Moving and Homing produce the same result, nothing?

That being the case, what did you do to cause the movement in the video, start a test print?

What microstepping jumpers have you got in-place on the RAMPS?

adavidm

i would look at the amperage instead of the volts

---

Check my rubbish blog for my prusa i3

up and running
[3dimetech.blogspot.co.uk]

Turns out it was a combination of inappropriate acceleration, incorrect steps-per-mm, and some voltage tweaking. All seems to be a-ok now!

Thanks for the input and sparking the train of thought. Sometimes you just need to type out a question and see what people say before your brain starts working again and go back to check the basics.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2014 06:01AM by ajdale.