Axis disable when not in use and pause

Hi,
I am running Gen7 electronics (Thanks Bryanandaimee!) with repetier. I have an issue with the disabling of the axis.

On my old Ramps+Sprinter setup the z-axis stepper driver is disabled whenever there is no z-move. The steppers don't get hot and the driver isn't overheating. When i click pause during a print in Ramps the steppers are not disabled.

With repetier the behaviour of the disabling seems different. The z-axis never seems to be disabled and when i click pause all steppers are disabled.

Why doesn't the z-axis disable when there is no z-move? And how can i configure the firmware not to disable the steppers during a pause?

The settings in the configuration file are the same.
thanks,
Frank

north90ty Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi,
> I am running Gen7 electronics (Thanks
> Bryanandaimee!) with repetier. I have an issue
> with the disabling of the axis.
>
> On my old Ramps+Sprinter setup the z-axis stepper
> driver is disabled whenever there is no z-move.
> The steppers don't get hot and the driver isn't
> overheating. When i click pause during a print in
> Ramps the steppers are not disabled.
>

> With repetier the behaviour of the disabling seems
> different. The z-axis never seems to be disabled
> and when i click pause all steppers are disabled.
>
Repetier-Firmware does the same, at least with Ramps boards. The problem with Gen7 is, that it has only one enable/disable switch which is connected to all stepper motors. So disabling the x axis would always disable y, z and e too. Therefore it is important for gen7 to set

// Disables axis when it's not being used.
#define DISABLE_X false
#define DISABLE_Y false
#define DISABLE_Z false
#define DISABLE_E false


>
> Why doesn't the z-axis disable when there is no
> z-move? And how can i configure the firmware not
> to disable the steppers during a pause?
>
Pausing does nothing except not sending more job commands. If you have set

/** After x seconds of inactivity, the stepper motors are disabled.
    Set to 0 to leave them enabled.
    This helps cooling the Stepper motors between two print jobs. 
*/
#define STEPPER_INACTIVE_TIME 120L

after some time all motors will stop, which is what i think happened to you. In this case I would set it to 0 and always disable motors manually if needed.
After a job you might add a
M84
to diable the motors. If you also use Repetier-Host disable go to dispose in this case, because this would restart the motors!

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Thanks a lot Repetier! This completely explains and answers my questions.
Maybe i will upgrade the board a bit to be able to disable the z-axis seperately. I like to be able to because that way i can adjust the height above the bed during the start of the print.

I was using pronterface but i will try building repetier host for my linux laptop.

And: The prints with Repetier firmware do indeed look a lot better than with Sprinter firmware (exactly same g-code).
Thanks

Ok. i cut some traces and made the z-enable independent of the other axis. I used dpin 21 for z-enable and the other enable are on port 24. I updated this in pins.h and uploaded the code.
When the printer is manually controlled the enable and disable works fine. But when i print the z-axis still doesn't disable. Any idea why?
My gcode has the z in every move (but it will remain the same number during each layer), do i need to remove this from the gcode for the firmware to see it as not using the axis?
Thanks!

I just had a similar question on my github account.

After rechecking the code I saw the implementation is wrong.
I fixed this in version 0.46 where the z-axis should disable between layers.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2012 12:15PM by repetier.

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Thanks a lot! Now i can turn the power on the Pololu stepper driver up and run the z-axis much faster!

I just installed v 0.91 rev 7 firmware on my Sanguinololu based printer, and am running repetier-host v 1.00 rc2, and found that the z axis stepper motor doesn't disable between layers. Is there a configuration setting for this now that I missed somewhere?

Cheers
-f

You did not miss a thing. Also the firmware can do it, the setting in the config tool was missing. I have added it now, so you can change it. YOu find it with the other check boxes for the corresponding motor.

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Repetier-Software - the home of Repetier-Host (Windows, Linux and Mac OS X) and Repetier-Firmware.
Repetier-Server - the solution to control your printer from everywhere.
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Amazing. I knew there was a good reason to update my firmware! Thanks for the quick reply.