RepRap Tricolor Slave Motor Extruders not Moving

Hi All,

I just upgraded my Mendel to the Tricolor, added two extruders and hot ends, and am trying to get a second material to extrude. The only problem is that the extruder motor is not moving thus no filament is coming out. Pronterface is recognizing the hotends and registering the temperatures of the extruders wired to the slave board but when I send the command to extrude material nothing is moving/coming out even though it says "extruding 10mm of filament". I really can't think of what is wrong, I checked and rechecked my wiring and am dumbfounded.

Please help, any suggestions would be useful!
Thanks!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2014 05:07PM by wheredidjengo.

Have you adjusted the amperage setting on the stepper drivers? They can be adjusted to deliver more or less amps, so it gets more or less power. If it's set too low it simply won't move. You don't want it too high either as otherwise it gets too warm and it will stop moving until it cools down. Often it only takes a fraction of a second to cool down, but it can be enough to make it mess up a print because it stopped for a bit.

What kind of stepper drivers are you using?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2014 07:40AM by TheTechnicalNoob.

No, that's not oversimplifying at all, I actually appreciate the input!

Do you mean setting the voltage on the potentiometers? I just checked their settings and they seem to be correct at 0.6 V. Any other ideas? And I also checked the motors themselves by hooking them up to the master board and they work.
It can't be the firmware can it? Since the hotends are working ... because if it was the firmware on the slave, nothing connected to the slave would work, correct? Or is it possible that the hotends could work but not the motors if the firmware wasn't updated...? I was really hoping it wasn't going to be a software problem.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2014 01:34PM by wheredidjengo.

I'm pretty incompetent when it comes to software, but when I checked to see the versions of the Firmware on the master and slave, this came up .... (screenshot attached to this post). I'm trying to interpret this text but does this give any indication of whats wrong?

EDIT: The screenshot is helpful it tells me you have your # of extruders set correctly and that you use marlin firmware

M̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶s̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶l̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶(̶l̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶3̶8̶)̶ ̶s̶e̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶r̶r̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶n̶u̶m̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶e̶x̶t̶r̶u̶d̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶f̶i̶g̶u̶r̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶.̶h̶ ̶
/̶/̶ ̶T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶d̶e̶f̶i̶n̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶n̶u̶m̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶e̶x̶t̶r̶u̶d̶e̶r̶s̶
#̶d̶e̶f̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶E̶X̶T̶R̶U̶D̶E̶R̶S̶ ̶1̶


Next, I'd try to verifiy that the extruder motors are working and have their connections wired correctly: try connect the extruder motors in question to the X or Y stepper drivers (which you know are working) and see if you can get them to move. Its probably best if they have no filament in them at this stage.

If that works,try use swap the X or Y axis stepper driver with the extruder stepper driver. So then now we have a known good stepper driver with known good amperage setttings on the trimpots and with a known good motor. Now the only variables left are software and the socket for the extruder stepper drivers.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2014 02:43PM by TheTechnicalNoob.

I checked the motors before I checked the voltage on the potentiometers. I took extruder 2 and extruder 3's motors and wired them to the terminal on the master board for extruder 1's motor, respectively and they both turned when they were wired there. So I know the motors themselves work.

I'm a little confused with your second suggestion "swap the X or Y axis stepper driver with the extruder stepper driver. So then now we have a known good stepper driver with known good amperage setttings on the trimpots and with a known good motor." Did you mean take either extruder 2 or 3's motor and wire them to the "extruder" terminal on the slave board?

From the screenshot can you tell if my Firmware for my slave is correct, or is compatible with my master's software? Also do you know what the line "transform correction not enabled means?" I've tried to look it up but I'm at a loss.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2014 06:44PM by wheredidjengo.

In the screenshot it says the what the standby temps of extruder 0, 1 and 2 are. So you obviously you have them enabled in the software.

Sorry, I meant replace an extruder stepper driver with the one from the X axis. The point being just to put one in there that works. Then you can also put the extruder stepper driver in the X axis and connect the X axis motor. Just to verify.

Ah, but you have a slave expansion board. So that is most likely the problem, as all of them are not working simultaneously. What type of board is it?
It might pay to go over the wiring again and make sure its correct and that it's receiving power.

Haha that would explain it, maybe that's why I was confused with your suggestion. Extruder 1 is wired to one board the "master" and Extruder 2 and Extruder 3 are wired to the expansion or "slave."

It's a Melzi board. I thought it must have been the wiring too but my wiring looks exactly as shown ... [www.reprappro.com]
I know that the expansion board is receiving power because it powers the hot ends for extruder 2 and extruder 3.

And the melzi board has non swappable stepper drivers. Right. Well, I can't really help without finding more info on it. I googled for melzi board expansion but didn't find much. I suggest you contact the people that sold you the kit. I'll keep you posted if I find anything.

EDIT: googling for melzi board master slave gives plenty of info. You could start there. I'll have a look when I get some more time.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2014 09:42PM by TheTechnicalNoob.

Presumably the firmware upgrade to enable the slave board went OK?? If so, did you then return the eprom values to default with M502 / M500 as instructed on page 6 of the Tricolour upgrade instructions?

If all this is OK then the next thing to do is to confirm that the extruder motors really will not work (don't forget that they will not normally work if the associated hot end is not up the working temperature).
The method for doing this is described on page 9 of the upgrade instructions. Basically what you do is to remove any filament from the extruder, then issue M302 which enables cold extrusion,
then issue an extrude command (something like G1 E5 F500).

Hope this helps

Harvey

Thanks so much TTN! I'll keep on researching and troubleshooting.
I do appreciate all the help, please let me know if anything else catches your eye.

Hey Harvey,

I actually did not perform any Firmware upgrades for my slave or master yet. I was trying to eliminate any hardware problems first.

It seems as though my slave is already enabled because I am able to control the hotend temperatures for extruder 2 and extruder 3 already. How I first saw that something was wrong was that I brought those respective hotends up to temp and then tried to extrude and the motors wouldn't turn.

That being said, do you think that it's a Firmware problem?

Hi wheredidjengo

Have you gone through the troubleshooting section here: [www.reprappro.com]

Also, connect to the master via Pronterface. Then press the reset button on the Melzi. When it's finished running through the startup routine, press 'Check temp' so it outputs a temperature reading. Then copy (you can highlight the text so you get it all) the text from the Pronterface log window, and paste it into your reply. That will give me lots of information to go on, and should help me work out what's going on, and come back to you with some sensible answers (or more questions!)

Ian
RepRapPro tech support

Hi Ian,

Is this screenshot what you're looking for?

I did perform all the steps in the troubleshooting page up until the firmware, I didn't want to touch the software until I was certain it wasn't a hardware problem.
I'm pretty incompetent when it comes to software so I didn't want to open that box unless I had to, haha.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2014 03:15PM by wheredidjengo.